SAN FRANCISCO—More than 1,000 mourners gathered at St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco on Sunday, June 21 to remember the victims of a fatal balcony collapse in Berkeley. The victims included five Irish students and a young woman with both Irish and American citizenship: Ashley Donohoe, 22, and Donohoe’s cousin Olivia Burke, 21, Eimear Walsh, 21, Eoghan Culligan, 21, Niccolai Schuster, 21 and Lorcán Miller, 21.
The accident occurred on June 16 at the Library Gardens apartment complex on Kitteredge Street. The students were celebrating a birthday party when the fourth-floor balcony they were standing on collapsed. Engineers investigating the case say water damage may have been involved.
The seven injured Irish students who survived the balcony collapse remain in area hospitals. According to the Archdiocese of San Francisco, they are Hannah Waters, Aoife Beary, Clodagh Cogley, Niall Murray, Seán Fahey, Jack Halpin and Conor Flynn. They are all said to face long physical and mental recoveries.
Those in attendance at Sundays Mass included Irish ambassador to the United States, Anne Anderson; the Irish consul general for the Western U.S., Philip Grant; and Deputy Consul Kevin Byrne. Prayers were also extended to the families of the victims of the church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina.
In Boston, the Roman Catholic archdiocese held a memorial mass on Monday, June 22.