The grief-stricken mother of Tyler Joyce who drowned alongside his father on Easter Sunday has spoken of her son's joie de vivre in a heartbreaking tribute to her little boy this week.
Three-year-old Tyler was making his way to a relative's home with his dad, Sean Sweeney, when the pair drowned in a stream near the Royal Canal on Sunday.
Discovered by a stunned onlooker in the Ashington Green area of Ashtown on Sunday afternoon, it was quickly established that Sean and Tyler had been taking a shortcut across the stream when tragedy struck.
Opening up about the loss of her beloved son, Pamela Joyce said: "I wouldn't like any mother to go through this. It's cruel because he was so intelligent. He never cried. He could have done anything with his life."
According to the Irish Independent, the toddler was a vivacious little boy who loved nothing more than dancing with his mother, with Pamela recalling: "His favourite song was Happy by Pharrel Williams. He loved that song."
"He'd ask me to come into bed and he would bounce up and down to the music. He loved his dancing," she remembered as she reflected on the impact her son had in his three short years.
It has been established that a fence which had been built to block the widely-used shortcut used by Sean and Tyler on Sunday had been removed by youngsters - an issue which Pamela insists requires urgent attention in order to prevent the further loss of life.
"Why can't they make a little walkway? It's not going to cost them much," she reasoned. "If they do something then we could say that Tyler's life wasn't lost, because somebody else was saved."
Tyler's funeral service is set to take place on Friday and our thoughts remain with the Sweeney and Joyce families.
