REBECCA FRENCH was ‘an innocent’ who trusted people and never saw bad in anyone, according to her heartbroken mother Nancy this week.
Speaking at the family home in Antelope Road, Maudlintown on Monday afternoon, Mrs. French (74) said she was trying not to think about the people responsible for her daughter’s death.
‘They will get their justice,’ she said, as she prepared to bury the youngest of her nine childen. Rebecca’s funeral Mass will take place in Bride Street Church today (Wednesday). Rebecca is survived by her children Tia (10) and Kayah (5); her sisters Tina, Eileen, Patricia, Anne and Rachael and her brothers Peter, George and Walter.
‘The hardest thing is realising that Tia and Kayah will never see her again, but children are resilient. There is a big family of us in it and we will look after them,’ said Nancy who has 23 grandchildren and 11 greatgrandchildren. Her husband George, a former Lightship employee and fisherman who built his own boats, died seven years ago.
Rebecca was the youngest member of the family and affectionately indulged throughout her childhood by her sisters and brothers, the eldest of whom was born 22 years before she came along.
They bought her clothes and took her along to the roller-discos in the Parish Hall before any of her peer group were able to go. From the age of eight, she was dressing up to take part in miming competitions in the former Dolphin Bar. When the band Kriss Kross were at the height of their short-lived fame, Rebecca copied them by wearing her jeans back to front for one of the competitions.
‘She was beautiful,’ said Nancy. ‘When she was nine months old, she won the Farley’s baby competition in Dun Mhuire.’
Fun-loving Rebecca loved makeup and hairstyling and did a beauty course at Enniscorthy Vocational College last year. Her aim was to operate her own freelance beauty service and she already had a lot of the equipment she needed.
Her speciality was sewn-in hairextensions which she did for family and friends. The skill was selftaught.
She loved reggae music, especially Bob Marley and according to Nancy, one of the reasons for her decision to move to London at the age of 17, was to meet Ziggy Marley.
The former Faythe School and Wexford Vocational College student initially spent three years in London where she completed a special needs childcare course.
She returned to Wexford to have her elder daughter Tia here. She went back to London after the child was born, but returned home to live when she was two years old. She then resided for a time in Roche’s Terrace and Cromwellsfort before moving to Mount Prospect about two and a half years ago.
Her second daughter Kayah was born five years ago. Both children are now attending Scoil Mhuire in Coolcotts.
Rebecca’s terrible death has deeply affected all the members of the close-knit French family who have been supporting each other since the news was broken to them by gardai last Friday night.
Their ordeal was made worse by the reporting of the case in national newspapers, according to one of her sisters. ‘A lot of things written in the papers was wrong. It was all false. It made her out to be something she wasn’t,’ she said.
‘Rebecca loved life. She loved music and she loved dancing. She would turn up the radio in the kitchen and dance around with the two girls,’ she added.
They have nothing but gratitude for the Gardai and the manner in which they have treated the family.
‘We’ve never had to deal with anything like this before. We can’t believe how kind they have been,’ said Nancy, singling out the Garda Liaison Officer Tony Connolly for special mention. She said the Gardai had kept them up to date with every development in the case over the weekend and provided advice and information on counselling for Rebecca’s children and other family members.
‘They’re living on the doorstep. Tony was here when we told Tia and Kayah that she had died. We told them she had an accident in her car and hurt her head and that she is now with grandda in heaven,’ said Nancy. On Monday evening, after Rebecca’s body had been released for burial, the family took the two girls to Kearney’s funeral home in Selskar, to let them see her coffin.
The children put a photograph of Rebecca on the casket along with a little box of mementoes of their mother.
‘Tia has a little cry every now and then. She is older and understands more but Kayah is only five,’ said Nancy.
Rebecca’s brother George bought a star on the Internet on Sunday night in memory of his sister. It is in the Andromeda constellation and is now named ‘Princess Rebecca’.
‘In future years, the children will be able to look at it and think about her,’ he said.
10.Fahrenheit – One For Me
09. Tony Rebel – Dreams
08. Tarrus Riley – Back Biter
07.John Public – Love U 4 Life
06.Sidra – Tell Me
05. D Major – Room 7744
04. Protoje – Arguments
03. Finley Quaye – Ride On
02.Lenn Hammond – Take Me Girl
01. Assassin – Priority
October 18, 2009 at 4:43 am |
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