Moving tribute to loving family now ‘together in death, as they were in life’

Tears streaming down their faces, mourners gathered yesterday to say farewell to three family members who died in the Glasgow bin lorry tragedy.

More than a thousand mourners gathered to pay tribute to Erin McQuade, 18, and her grandparents Jack Sweeney, 68 and Lorraine Sweeney, 69, who died when the out-of-control refuse vehicle ploughed into pedestrians in the city’s George Square three days before Christmas.

Those assembled were told the family had suffered “tragedy on tragedy and sadness on sadness”. Their heart-wrenching cries punctuated the still winter morning air. The bright blue of the sky and the colourful wreaths on the hearses the only colour on this darkest of days.

Archbishop Tartaglia who has been a rock to the family throughout their ordeal said Jack and Lorraine had been “responsible for creating a loving family who were very close to each other” as he told mourners: “Their last day on this earth said it all. Jack and Lorraine, Jacqueline and Erin went on a Christmas shopping trip. Three generations of the same loving family.

“They died as they lived together. It is fitting they should share the same funeral Mass. They will be buried in the same grave.”

Miss McQuade’s mother, Jacqueline McQuade, is thought to have gone to withdraw money from a cash machine while Christmas shopping when her daughter and parents, all from Dumbarton, were fatally injured.

Grieving friends and family packed St Patrick’s RC Church in Dumbarton, where the family live, for a joint requiem mass for the teenager and her grandparents.

Glasgow Council leader Gordon Mathieson attended, alongside Justice Secretary Michael Matheson, Labour MP Jackie Baillie, and Celtic players Charlie Mulgrew and Mikael Lustig.

The tragic event touched so many lives that an overspill of guests had to listen to yesterday morning’s service from the church’s parish hall, with dozens only able to pay their respects from outside.

Family members arrived minutes before the 10am service, which guests from as far as Canada had been arriving to for more than an hour.

Dressed in black, Erin’s heartbroken mum Jacqueline, 43, walked into the mass hand-in-hand with six-year-old daughter Naimh and son Aiden, 14. Husband Matthew, 49, and brother Liam, 15, were joined by Erin’s distraught aunt Yvonne Reilly and husband Michael, who lost her niece and parents in the tragedy the three of whom beamed on the front of the day’s order of service.

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia said he had “never known a family which set a better example of how a marriage should be and how a family should live” describing both Jack and Lorraine, and daughter Jacqueline, as “pillars of their community”.

Crying could be heard throughout, as the coffins of the three beloved relatives lay at the front of a packed congregation, each dressed in a large bouquet of white roses. The service included readings from Erin’s aunt Elizabeth and cousin Hazel McQuade.

Retired television engineer Jack was formerly president of the Bramalea Celtic Supporters Club. He and hairdresser wife Lorraine were childhood sweethearts, who fell in love when they were both school pupils in Dumbarton. They moved to Toronto, Canada, where they lived for a number of years before recently returning.

Friends and colleagues of Erin, 18, wept in each others arms after saying their goodbyes to the popular English Literature student, who worked part-time at the Cameron House Hotel near Loch Lomond.

The 1,000 mourners stood silently under blue skies as the three hearses, bathed in colourful wreaths accompanied by heartfelt messages, pulled away from the church for a private burial ceremony at Dumbarton Cemetery.

Archbishop Tartaglia previously told a memorial mass he wept with the woman who saw her teenage daughter and both parents die almost in front of her.

He said yesterday: “Jack and Lorraine’s daughters, Jacqueline and Yvonne, are also Erin’s heartbroken mum and sorrowing aunt. This is a family devastated by the tragic deaths all at once of three much-loved members.

“They were struck down in front of Jacqueline’s eyes. A happy Christmas shopping excursion to Glasgow had become the worst of nightmares. What happened was random, cruel and meaningless.”

Primary teacher Stephenie Tait, 29, and tax worker Jacqueline Morton, 51, both from Glasgow, and Gillian Ewing, 52, from Edinburgh, were also killed when the council lorry mounted the pavement before crashing into the side of the Millennium Hotel.

Mrs Morton had a private funeral yesterday.

Three patients remain in two Glasgow hospitals following the crash.

A 14-year-old girl believed to be Alix Stewart from Kilmalcolm and 64-year-old Marie Weatherall from Glasgow are in stable conditions at the Royal Infirmary. A 57-year-old man thought to be the driver is stable at the Western Infirmary.

Investigations into the crash, in which six people died and 10 were injured on December 22, are continuing.