by Paddy Clancy
FIREFIGHTERS from the Fire Department of New York who survived the 9/11 tragedy were among mourners at funerals of two part-time firemen who died when trapped by a collapsing ceiling in a disused factory blaze in the seaside resort of Bray, Co. Wicklow.
The FDNY members flew to Ireland especially to pay tribute to the memory of 47-year-old Brian Murray, who died alongside his 25-year-old colleague Mark O'Shaughnessy.
Murray, a father of 15, had befriended the New York officers when he helped in the clean-up at Ground Zero in March 2002. He also arranged for a number of New York firefighters who survived the 9/11 disaster to spend St Patrick's Day 2002 in Bray.
FDNY members Greg Ruggiero and Peter Savarese joined a guard of honor at the funerals in Bray on Tuesday. Savarese told RTE radio in Dublin, "Losing a fellow firefighter is like losing a brother. It's like losing a family member."
President Mary McAleese and Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern paid tribute to the heroism of Murray and O'Shaughnessy and were represented by top aides at the separate funeral services.
Local community leaders and relatives of the dead men expressed fury that the town doesn't have a full-time firefighting service.
Murray's widow Mary, his brother Noel and his second-eldest son, 25-year-old Darren, were adamant that a permanent crew would have made the difference between life and death.
They said there would have been more firefighters available to respond to the alert and they would then have been able to contain the fire from outside the factory.
Mary Murray said, "I want to know how many more will it take before they put a full-time service into Bray. How many more children, how many more people, how many more families are they going to leave like this?"
Noel Murray said, "A full-time fire service would have had 20 people there and they wouldn't have had to go into the building. They had to go in because they had to contain the fire.
"Two went inside and two stayed outside. If they had a full-time service they would be still alive today."
Wicklow County Chief Fire Officer James Dunphy rejected the claim. "Nobody has been able to explain to me how it would have been different if there were full-time firefighters there. I don't know how it would have been different and I'm the chief fire officer," he said.
Ahern agreed. "I'm told by their colleagues the two men who lost their lives were very experienced. On the face of it I'm not too sure whether the outcome would have altered whether they were full-time or not," he said.
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