COUNCIL TO DEMOLISH HOUSE OF HORROR
‘NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD EVER LIVE IN THAT HOUSE’ -
IT has been confirmed that the Charleville house where two young brothers were stabbed to death four years ago by their older brother, who then took his own life, is set to be torn to the ground.
The deaths of nine-year-old twins Patrick and Tommy O’Driscoll at their Deerpark home and the suicide of their 21-year-old brother Jonathan shocked the nation.
Since then their distraught mother has campaigned to have the house demolished, saying it was not a fit environment for her family, in particular her other two young sons.
“They were there on the day of the tragedy and I didn’t think it was an environment for my boys and me,” said Mrs O’Driscoll, speaking recently on Cork’s 96FM.
“It wasn’t about me or my husband anymore. It was about the two boys who were living. I needed to look after their well being and mental health.”
This week it emerged that Cork County Council has agreed to demolish the building and has bought a new house for the family in the vicinity of their former home.
The family are currently living in nearby rented accommodation.
Local county councillor Ian Doyle said the local authority was living up to a commitment it made to re-home the O’Driscoll family.
“We could not ask anyone to go back into that house,” he said.
CORK County Council is to demolish the Charleville house in which 21-yearold Jonathan O’Driscoll stabbed his two nine-year-old brothers to death before taking his own life four years ago.
Patrick and Tommy O’Driscoll’s bodies were found in separate rooms of the house at Deerpark on September 4, 2014, with a post-mortem examination later finding they had sustained more than 40 wounds each.
Jonathan O’Driscoll’s body was discovered the same day at the banks of the Awbeg River in Buttevant.
The jury at an inquest into the deaths of the boys returned an open verdict. They ruled a suicide in the case of Jonathan.
Confirmation that the authority is to knock the Deerpark property has come following a long campaign by the boys’ mother, Helen O’Driscoll. Speaking last week to PJ Coogan on Cork’s 96 FM, Mrs O’Driscoll said that the house was not a fit environment for the family and that it was tradition within the Traveller community to burn the barrel top wagon in which a person had died.
Mrs O’Driscoll said she had taken it upon herself to move out of the house and find another place to live for the sake of her other two sons.
“They were there on the day the tragedy happened and I didn’t think it was an environment for my boys and me. It wasn’t about me or my husband anymore. It was about the two boys who were living. I needed to look after their well being and mental health,” she said.
“For all three of us, I had to go out of it. Nobody in their right mind would ever live in that house. In the travelling community years ago you had a caravan or a wagon and when there was a death the property would be burned. Their souls would go to peace.”
Mrs O’Driscoll said it was impossible to really rebuild your life after such a tragedy but you do your best to put the pieces back together. She said that Jonathan suffered from mental health issues and that she had forgiven him for what happened.
“I had Jonathan for years before I had the boys and there is something about your first child. To me, all three of them were my babies and all three of them always will be my babies. It was just horrific the way things happened,” she said.
The O’Driscoll family are currently living in rented property close to their former house.
Local county councillor Ian Doyle said the authority was living up to its commitment to rehouse the O’Driscoll family.
“We could not ask anyone to go back into the house and have recently bought another property in the area for the family that is currently undergoing repairs,” said Cllr Doyle.
“While it remains to be seen what will be done with the site once the house has been demolished, it is most likely that it will be used for new housing,” he added.