This article is from page 8 of the 2008-02-05 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 8 JPG
THE CLARE lake where the body of a murdered Limerick teenager was found was the site of a fishing com- petition in his memory on Sunday. Mary Kelly, mother of 17-year- old Richard ‘Happy’ Kelly, put up a bronze trophy for the competition as a way of thanking the fishermen who
snagged his skeletal remains and brought her 20 months of uncertainty to a close.
Mary Kelly vowed she would nev- er go to see Lough Bridget where her son’s remains – which had been weighed down with a concrete block – were found.
Gardai believe the young father may have been murdered after fall-
ing foul of a Limerick gang lord be- cause he stole a car containing gang drugs and ammunition.
Members of the Kelly family at- tended the fishing competition on Mary’s behalf.
“I will never go back there (Lough Bridget) but it was our luck that the fishermen went there that weekend,” she said. “I will never forget the 20
months I waited for news of Happy. Now I’m waiting to get justice for my son,” she said.
Mary said the organising of the competition and the presentation of the trophy – a bronze of fishermen in a boat – is a way of letting the anglers know what they did for her family.
The two anglers who snagged the Limerick teenager’s remains were
among those who took part in what is hoped will become and annual competition.
Happy went missing on April 26, 2006 and might never have been found except for the fishermen’s ex- pedition last November.
In a twist of fate, one of the anglers who found Happy’s remains is an ac- quaintance of the Kelly family.