Hard truths

Last Sunday’s editorial deals with the terrible events that unfolded in Co. Cavan when Alan Hawe murdered his wife Clodagh and three sons. In it you describe how many people had rushed to defend Mr Hawe, painting him as ‘a respected teacher, a stalwart of the community, a good husband and father’.

I had wondered myself about the coverage and compared it to the coverage of the massacre that occurred in Nice recently where nobody hesitated in wholeheartedly condemning the actions of the perpetrator. Why was this?

It is very easy to condemn something from afar when we have very little emotional connection to either the perpetrator or the victims.

What makes the Cavan tragedy so scary is the apparent normality of the perpetrator. We all know people like Alan Hawe. He was a pillar of the community, a school vice principal, very involved in his local church and community.

In times like these we tend to look for instant answers. We can point to the radicalisation of a young man in a foreign country who carries out an atrocity in the name of Isis, for example.

But when ‘one of our own’ carries out an equally abhorrent act we are at a loss as to how to react.

We need to acknowledge what happened in this case. Whatever was going on in Alan Hawe’s mind he brutally murdered his wife and three young children. It can be scary for us to acknowledge the hard facts but failing to do so shows no respect for four lives ended prematurely. Tommy Roddy, Lower Salthill, Galway.