The Connors funeral passes through the roundabout at the Coach House, Gorey, last Friday, on the final journey to St. Michael’s Cemetery. Pic: Christy Farrell.

Concerns are growing in Gorey that the relatively rare and ancient crime of grave robbery may strike sometime in the future after slain criminal, ‘Fat’ Andy Connors, (45), was buried in St. Michael’s Graveyard last Friday evening, resting in a gold plated casket costing €28,000 and wearing a Rolex wrist watch valued at €18,000.

Burial took place eleven days after the father of six was shot a number of times, in front of his wife and family, and killed at his home in Saggart, in south Dublin, and his funeral procession through Gorey’s Main Street was an ostentatious display the likes of which were never before seen in the North Wexford town.

Although he was not a native of Wexford, he was son of the late ‘Pale Miley’ Connors, who was well-known in Gorey and had long standing roots in the town and district.

The funeral took place last Friday with Mass in the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saggart, where the parish priest, Fr. Enda Cunningham told the mourners that the Connors family wanted no retaliation for his death, or to see another family endure the pain they were going through.

The burial of Andy Connors was a dignified occasion.

Local curate, Fr. Matt Boggan, read prayers and blessed the casket before it was gently eased into its final resting place.

The grave was covered with a sea of floral tributes; one which read “The best Daddy in the world.”

Front page story this week in THE GOREY ECHO.