Brian’s grieving mother: How could God do this to me twice?’
The grieving mother of Brian O’Callaghan-Westropp, killed in the Greek inferno, has had to deal with the crushing blow of burying a son once before. Here her close friend, Fr Shay Casey, describes a ‘remarkable’ and ‘resilient’ woman who he says is now co
“HOW could God do this to me twice…?” These were the words of devastated mother Rosemarie O’Callaghan-Westropp after her worst nightmare was confirmed; the painful search for her only living son Brian was over.
After an agonising wait hoping Brian O’Callaghan-Westropp would turn up alive, on Wednesday night, Greek authorities confirmed he had burned to death in the apocalyptic wildfires that swept through the Greek seaside town of Mati, where Brian and his darling new wife, Zoe Holohan, had arrived just two days earlier for their honeymoon. Brian, who ran a catering company, and Zoe, an advertising executive for the Sunday World newspaper, got caught in a traffic jam as they tried to flee the engulfing flames. As the fire raged around them, they were forced out of the vehicle but became separated in the stampede as panicked crowds scrambled to the beach for safety.
Zoe never saw Brian again. He was among the 81 people known to have died in the inferno that razed the resort of Mati, 50km from Athens, to the ground on Monday night.
Brian’s bereft mother Rosemarie put the profound question to her close friend, Fr Shay Casey, on Wednesday, after she arrived in Greece. She was on her way to Athens to identify her son, before making arrangements to bring Brian home to be buried in Killaloe.
But he had no answers to give her, only words of comfort, during what must seem like an horrific, recurring nightmare for Rosemarie O’Callaghan-Westropp, who has been down this road many times before.
It was Fr Casey — chaplain at Athlone Institute of Technology — who arrived at Rosemarie’s door in Killaloe, Co Clare, in March 1997, bearing the crushing news that her fit and hardy youngest son Colin, 21, had been killed in a motorbike crash on his way back to Athlone, where he was studying Sports Science at the college.
Colin was a member of the outreach chaplaincy team at Athlone Institute of Technology, manning a round the clock helpline for students, and was returning to the house he shared with Fr Casey and fellow outreach students when he came off his bike in a collision with a car near Roscrea, Co Tipperary.
‘Colin had my name on a card in his pocket so the gardaí in Nenagh rang me and said he wouldn’t be coming back to the house, he’d been killed,’ recalls Fr Casey.
‘When you have to bring someone news their son is dead, there is an extraordinary bond afterwards.
‘Rosemarie’s husband — Jason and Colin’s dad — died young and she raised those two wonderful boys so well on her own. Now they’re all gone.’
Fr Casey met Brian through his late brother Colin – and they were as alike as two brothers could be.
‘Brian and Colin were two of a kind in many ways. In later years, after Colin died, when Brian would come into the room, you’d hear his voice and say, “Jesus, that’s Colin”, even their expressions, the way he looked — and down to the aftershave.’
As tributes pour in for Brian, a picture emerges of a fun-loving but utterly selfless and generous man, imbued with a great sense of duty towards others.
He was described by shocked friends at Blood Bikes East – a team of selfless volunteer bikers who deliver emergency medical supplies such as blood and transplant organs to hospitals round the clock — as ‘an absolute linchpin and keystone’.
Brian only joined Blood Bikes East just over a year ago, but threw himself into developing the charity, and was appointed secretary.
Colleague Franco De Bonis told how Brian started out as a volunteer rider, adding: ‘He realised he could assist in other ways because of his background. The charities regulator had introduced new rules for charities so he really worked hard and diligently to sort all that out. Like many of us he wanted to use what he loved, which is motorbiking, for other people’s benefit. He would be thinking of others before himself.
‘He was the kind of guy who gave very freely of his time — he very much thought of others.’
Grief-stricken colleagues at his catering company Ready Chef described Brian as a ‘larger-than-life’ guy who was ‘a friend, a mentor and someone who provided us with guidance, someone we looked up to and respected. He encouraged everyone to achieve their full potential. ’
And Brian’s noble traits clearly ran in the O’Callaghan-Westropp family.
At a time when many of us only care about the next big night out, Brian’s late brother Colin spent many nights as a young student manning phonelines helping fellow students in crisis, as part of a small chaplaincy outreach team.
‘It could be depression or drink or drugs-related or maybe the student ended up in the Garda station or needed to go to the hospital,’ explains Fr Casey, who worked alongside and shared a house with Colin and the other outreach students.
‘Colin was excellent. You needed a certain mind-set — positive, resilient, adjustable — Colin was those things and an absolute free spirit.
‘Both Colin and Brian grabbed life by the scruff of the neck. They were devil-may-care characters — we all had some good nights but they had a very caring way, they’d never be selfish and this idea that whatever you have is a gift and you share it and do what you can for others permeated their lives.’
Brian and his brother grew up on the shore of Lough Derg in Killaloe and loved the outdoors.
‘In Killaloe there was always a boat or two pulled into the house and Colin and Brian were great sailors,’ says Fr Casey.
‘They did water skiing, windsurfing, motorbikes, skiing — they’d no fear. They were fit, hardy young guys. Colin was into sport in a huge way – windsurfing, sailing. He used to work in Achill Island in watersports over the summers.
‘It’s just so incredible to think Brian was taken in a fire — I could understand if it was a crash or a skiing accident but to be burned to death on a beach I just can’t get my head around it.’
Fr Casey continues: ‘Brian was two years older than Colin — they were great friends — Colin wouldn’t take any lip from his older brother.
‘As brothers they both looked after their mother and their grandmother who was alive then and they took turns going down to Clare to look after her.
‘I’ll tell you a story that shows the type of guy Colin was: when my dad
It’s so incredible to think Brian was taken in a fire He gave freely of his time.. he really thought of others
was still alive, he was 84, living 30 miles away and our family took turns going down to him. But sometimes I couldn’t get down and Colin would always volunteer to spend the night with him.
‘Colin and my dad were really great friends and Colin would get him a whiskey before he went to bed.
‘Himself and Brian were very conscious of looking after their own mother too — great lads and Rosemarie raised them like that.’ After school, Brian left Clare for Dublin, where he went to college and later set up business in catering.
Not one to rest on his laurels, when he died, he was in the final stages of his MBA at the National College of Ireland, where he was also class rep.
Fr Casey says: ‘Brian was a very sharp businessman. He was in the catering trade and that took a big hammering in the crash and he had to rebuild his company again and it’s not easy being selfemployed and carving your own way in the world.
‘He weathered the storm and made relationships and did the deals. You need amazing skill to do that but he did it.’
Brian stayed in contact with Fr Casey over the years, sometimes attended the annual Mass for deceased AIT students and staff in Athlone and always popped in to say hello if he was in the area.
Fr Casey reveals how meeting Zoe was the best thing to ever happen to Brian – and says Rosemarie would be the first to tell you. ‘Rosemarie would be a tough woman to please, as most mothers are when their sons are getting married, but she really loves Zoe so much and said she was like a Godsend to Brian. She is just a wonderful girl. Himself and Zoe had their whole lives ahead of them. It’s such an awful tragedy.’
Right now, Rosemarie is with Zoe and her family in Greece as she recovers in hospital from burns to her face and body. Fr Casey is keeping in regular contact with Rosemarie and will help to arrange Brian’s funeral.
‘Rosemarie is a remarkable woman — she has stood at the foot of the cross before,’ he says.
‘She’ll organise things to the last and it will be done very well. Young people might not have lived long enough to understand but Rosemarie has that resilience in herself to look it in the face and know you have to get up tomorrow and go on — put on your best face and deal with it.
‘You don’t have the luxury of cracking up. You have to get on with it and she would be that type of person — very pragmatic.’
‘She’s very together and not given to major displays of emotion or grief, not in public. She has a great group of wonderful friends in Clare and so many people who are looking out for her.
‘Colin was a huge support to me and was someone I will never forget. We had so many laughs and he helped look after my dad during the year before he died and after we lost him, he helped look after my own mother.
‘His brother Brian was just like him – caring, unassuming and he’d do anything for you. Rosemarie raised them that way. She will get through this.
‘All she is thinking about now is her daughter-in-law Zoe.
‘We’ll just all have to look after Rosemarie and Zoe better than ever together.’
Rosemarie has stood at the foot of the cross before