Offaly plane crash victim to be buried on thursday

An Edenderry native was one of the two men who died in a plane crash last Sunday.

Friends Bryan Keane(69) and Paul Smith(58) died when the two-seater Cessna plane they were in crashed at Mount Leinster on the Carlow/Wexford border.

Mr Keane grew up on St Mary’s Road in Edenderry and served an apprenticeship as a fitter with Bord na Mona in nearby Carbury. Mr Keane’s family are well known in Edenderry, where his later father Johnny had been the principal of Edenderry Boys National School.  

Edenderry Cllr Noel Bourke remembered Mr Keane starting his apprenticeship with Bord na Mona. “Bryan was a particularily good guy. He went on to become a metal work teacher. He worked in one of the schools in Co Meath,” Cllr Bourke remarked. “He was a very nice guy, I remember him well,” he said.

Cllr Bourke said Mr Keane had a fascination with everything mechanical. “I remember one time he arrived into work in a three wheeled bubble car,” he recalled. “He was very interested in mechanical things...I suppose that led him into the interest in airplanes,” he added. Although he was based in Co Meath,Cllr Bourke said Mr Keane would occasionally return to Edenderry.  

Mr Keane will be laid to rest in St Colmcille’s Cemetery Kells following Funeral Mass in The Sacred Heart Church, Mullaghea, Kells on Thursday at 2.30pm. He is survived by his wife Madaline, daughter Andrea (Elson) and sons Bryan, Robert, Colin and Cormac, son in-law Paul, grandchildren Conor, Jane and Alison, his brothers Fergus, Adrian, Laurence, and Séan, sisters Catherine and Elizabeth, relatives and many friends.

His friend, Paul Smith, will be buried following 11am Funeral Mass at St Lawrance’s Church, Rathmore, Co Meath. Mr Smith is survived by his wife Anne, daughter Hazel-Ann, son Howard and his partner Suzanne, grandchildren T.P, Willow and Peter, his sisters Lily, Nora, Anne, Josie and his brother Paddy, his extended family and many friends.