[caption id="attachment_67464" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Ciaran O Conghaile's funeral in Dorchester."]
The funeral took place in Boston last week of murder victim Ciaran O Conghaile, who was gunned down outside his Dorchester home in the early hours of Sunday morning, Oct. 9.
The 36-year-old Aran Islands native was eulogized in both Irish and English at the packed funeral Mass in St. Mark's the Evangelist Church in the Dorchester neighborhood where O Conghaile had lived for the past dozen years.
Rev. Daniel Finn told mourners that O Conghaile was a quiet, God-fearing man who had come to call Boston home and that he had no intention of ever leaving.
"He was welcome in any company. He would have been proud to see the Irish flag and the Galway flag flying outside of St. Mark's this morning," mourner Michael Folan said.
O Conghaile's remains were flown back to Ireland last week ahead of his burial on the Aran Islands on Saturday.
The view of investigators is that O Conghaile, from Mor village on Inis Meain, may have been simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The undocumented construction worker had reached his home on Nahant Avenue when he was shot during a botched robbery. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
O Conghaile had been returning home after attending that weekend's Irish Heritage Festival.
Investigators have focused on a separate non-fatal robbery of a woman in Dorchester that evening and believe the same three-man gang was responsible for shooting O Conghaile.
The Irish Independent, meanwhile, reported that Inis Meain came to a standstill as islanders gathered to bid farewell to O Conghaile at the weekend burial.
Shops, pubs and other outlets closed their doors and the small church was filled to overflowing in tribute.
Fr. Joe Jennings, who ministers on the island and the nearby Inis Oirr, said that the family had been heartened by the presence of the (former) U.S. Ambassador to The Holy See, Raymond Flynn, at the funeral in Boston, the paper reported.
It added that O Conghaile, who is survived by his parents Micheal and Anna, brother Pol and sisters Mary Anne and Deirdre, was buried beside his brother Micheal, who drowned 11 years ago, in the island cemetery close to the seashore and facing the Burren in County Clare.
