The heartbroken friends and family of an 11-year-old schoolboy have paid their respects after he died after getting into difficulty in the water last month.
Emergency services attended Alexander Hamilton Memorial Park in South Lanarkshire on Saturday, July 24, where the body of Dean Irvine was recovered from the River Avon.
This morning in a touching send off, more than a hundred local residents near Dean's family home in Hillhouse, Hamilton, lined the streets in the youngster's honour.
Many of them showed their support for the grieving family by sporting Celtic’s green and white football colours – his favourite team.
Dean was one of many drowning tragedies that happened in Scotland in the last week of July.
READ MORE: Alexander Hamilton Memorial Park: Boy pronounced dead after being pulled from water
Friends and family wore Celtic tops with ‘Deano’ along with the number 11 on the back to remember the young man’s life. Locals let off green, white, and orange flares, and set off fireworks, whilst the hearse made its way to Celtic Park.
A convoy of cars followed the hearse to Dean’s boyhood team stadium, with some playing the famous song ‘you’ll never walk alone’ – the same phrase that lay next to Dean’s coffin – and flowers which said ‘Deano’, ‘Son’, and ‘Brother’ were sat by a fitting bouquet of flowers shaped into a football.
Club staff at Celtic Park came outside to applaud the procession, as Dean visited Park Head one last time, before returning to the funeral home in Hamilton.
He was one of seven people who lost their lives after getting into difficulty in water in that same week.
READ MORE: Loch Lomond drownings: Muhammed Asim Riaz laid to rest by family and colleagues
Edina Olahova, 29, Rana Haris Ali, nine, and Muhammad Asim Riaz, 39, died after getting into difficulty in Loch Lomond, near Pulpit Rock, on Saturday July 24.
A 13-year-old boy lost his life in water at Hazelbank in Lanark the same day, while a 16-year-old boy died at Balloch at the south end of Loch Lomond the previous day.
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