The people of Limerick turned out in their hundreds for both the removal on Friday night of the fifth-class pupil and his funeral mass yesterday at the Dominican Church on Glentworth Street. Afterwards, his griefstricken mother told the Sunday Tribune how his family want Mark remembered as they knew him - laughing, she said.

"He loved anything that involved spending money."

The youngster loved going into town on a Saturday with his grandfather Frank.

When they went out together, he would try and dress up like his grandfather, even putting on his aftershave.

Academics didn't interest him particularly, but he was passionate about art, his mother said.

At the head of the church hung two art collages made by his classmates at Sexton Street CBS, with some of Mark's drawings on them, and messages to him and about him in big, bright, bold letters. "Musician. Artist.

Referee. Kind, " said one.

Fr Noel Kirwan gave the homily. He said Mark's family had asked that the funeral help to "hold that living that he had, hold that joy that he had in his family and his friends, and celebrate that.

"He discovered the economy of good deeds, " Fr Kirwan joked. "By volunteering to do good deeds, there'd be a euro in it as well. So he volunteered often."

Mark was buried in the old cemetery in Mungret, outside Limerick city, beside his granny, Mary O'Neill, who died aged just 47 in 1995. Fr Kirwan had said earlier:

"Now, Mary, his grandmother, will have him to enjoy."