The family of Barellan man Micheal Irvin have remembered him as a man with that rare quality of being able to bring a smile to faces in good times and bad.
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Sister Victoria Palmer has paid tribute to her late brother, saying she and her family were still in shock.
“He had a cheeky sense of humour, he was always up to mischief,” she said.
“But if you were feeling down, he just always knew exactly what to say.”
The Mr Irvin passed away in a double fatal truck accident near Whitton on January 3.
He was just 30.
On Tuesday Mrs Palmer urged the community to take care of one another on the region’s roads.
“Anything can happen so quickly and trucks can’t slow down as quickly as cars,” she said.
Mrs Palmer said it had been a comfort to see just how many lives her brother had touched in his short time on earth. “He was just the life of the party, someone that everyone loved to have around,” Mrs Palmer said.
“He really had a wide range of friends, we always used to say that he could socialise with anyone no matter what age they were.”
Also comforting in the days that have followed Mr Irvin’s passing has been the thought he spent his last few days doing what he loved.
“It was his first day back at work, he had only just come back from the river,” Mrs Palmer said.
”But he also loved his job, he liked to see the countryside, he loved driving tractors as well – he had a farm with his two brothers close to Barellan,” she said.
For the close siblings who used to love making up nicknames to torment one another Mrs Palmer said the blow has been especially hard.
“It has hit everyone pretty hard, it was all three of their dreams to be able to farm full time and to one day have their own farms,” she said.
“My parents also lost my sister Kaylene, laying one child to rest is bad enough, let alone two – Micheal will be laid to rest with her at Barellan on Friday, January 20.”
Instead of flowers, the family have requested donations be made to Angel Flight.