Farm family’s 50 years of tragedy
The Hennessys were decent and hard working, but their story is also steeped in heartache and sorrow across the generations
AS THOMAS Hennessy’s bicycle careered off the laneway leading to his humble farmhouse in north Cork more than half a century ago, what unfolded shortly thereafter was a tragedy.
For it was just after he made the last turn for home that the young father of five had a fatal heart attack.
And in the decades since then his wife Eily, sons Willie, Jer, Paddy, Johnny and only daughter Breda, must surely have wondered what might have been if the much-loved husband and father had only made the last few yards to his front door. Life would certainly have been different. And if Thomas had not died suddenly, maybe the Hennessy family might have been spared the heartache of the many tragedies which have beset the family ever since.
In the years since her husband’s death, Eily ‘struggled with her nerves’ as she reared their five children on their small land holding located not far away from the bustling market town of Mitchelstown.
Life was not easy. But the family got by. But then tragedy struck again nine years ago when Thomas’s only grandson Paudie took his own life. Two years later Thomas’s son Jer died by suicide and now gardaí are trying to piece together what unfolded at the humble cottage last week where two of Thomas’s sons were killed bytheir youngest brother before he took his own life.
A family friend recalled: ‘Thomas was cycling his bike up the laneway leading to the house when he got a heart attack and his bike skidded into the ditch.
‘The children were all very young when that happened. Willie was the eldest in the family and I think he would have been only about 13 or 14 when his father died.
‘The rest of them were so young when that happened that the younger ones hadn’t even made their Communion.
‘When their father Thomas died there was no will because he died suddenly, and as far as I know their mother Eily didn’t make a will. So whatever happened wasn’t over land because there was no will.
‘Willie was the eldest and he lived in Mitchelstown but he would be out at the farm every day.
‘Johnny lived in the home place and he was the youngest. They worked together on the farm but Willie was the boss and whatever he said went.
‘Whatever happened last week wasn’t over land because I never heard them argue over that.
‘But there would have been conflict over cattle and whether they should have been sold or kept on.’
The childhood friend continued: ‘Willie, Paddy and Jer would all have played hurling and when they went to secondary school in Mitchelstown they would have started playing a lot of handball.
‘Johnny played a bit of hurling but slow bicycle racing was his thing. He was a champion at the slow bicycle racing and no one in north Cork could beat him at it.
‘I knew all the lads and I am totally devastated at what has happened. I knew them since they were children and I just can’t understand why this happened.
‘I know there was a bit of a want in them but they were gentle folk. They would gladly help you if they could and if they lost an animal, they’d be very upset about that.
‘And when Willie, Paddy and Johnny were together they would chat away as if it had been 20 years ago since they saw one another. They had a rough life but they were always polite and quietly spoken.
‘Their brother Jer killed himself. He went into the river and they were very upset over that.’
The Hennessy brothers were known locally as ‘The Saints’ and many assumed their gentle natures had earned them this nickname.
But it was a name they inherited from their mother’s brothers.
A family friend explained: ‘The Saints was a perfect name for them but they actually inherited that nickname from their uncles on their mother’s side.
‘The story goes that one of their mother’s three brothers was doing hay in a field with a local farmer.
‘It was coming up for six o’clock and the farmer wanted him to work on and wind the hay but their uncle said to the farmer, “I don’t know about you but I’m going to Mass to save my soul.”
‘After that the three McCarthy brothers were known as The Saints and the lads inherited that name from their uncles.
‘There are a lot of Hennessys and the name The Saints distinguished them from the other Hennessys.’
This weekend, postmortem examinations were being carried out on the bodies of the three Hennessy brothers.
The body of Paddy was found in the farmyard with horrific injuries, and during a follow-up search, the body of Willie, who also suffered catastrophic injuries, was found in a shed.
Superintendent Liam Geraghty described it as a ‘difficult scene’. Gardaí had called to the isolated farm at Curraghgorm, 8km from Mitchelstown, at around midnight on Thursday, where the bodies of Paddy and Willie were found.
Gardaí initially treated the incident as a potential hostage situation and a major operation began.
Members of the Armed Support Units (ASU) from Cork and Limerick were dispatched to the farmyard, along with a Garda negotiator
‘Whatever happened wasn’t over land because there was no will’
and on-site commander. After they discovered the body of the second brother and realised Johnny was not on the property, a search was launched.
Gardaí then issued an appeal to trace a red Toyota Corolla van, warning the public not to approach it under any circumstances.
A number of checkpoints were set up and the air support units were called in to help in the manhunt. More than 50 officers were also deployed.
Just after 10am yesterday, gardaí reported that the van had been found – and just over two hours later the body of Johnny was recovered from the River Funshion by the Garda Water Unit.
And yesterday members of the gardaí were still at the family home in Tyngresa, Curraghgorm, trying to find clues as to what led 59year-old Johnny Hennessy to murder his two older brothers Willie, 67, and Paddy, 60, by bludgeoning them to death with an axe last Thursday and then drown himself sometime later in a nearby local river.
Of the four brothers – Willie, Jer, Paddy and Johnny – it was the youngest, Johnny, who was regarded as the quietest.
So the horror and violence he unleashed on his brothers and himself during his last hours alive have mystified his family, neighbours and friends.
A family member revealed: ‘Johnny was so shy he’d run away from you rather than talk to you. He wouldn’t say boo to you and if he saw a guard, he’d run away altogether.
‘Johnny was never at a doctor in his life. There might be a bit of barking and shouting between the lads but no more than there would be between any brothers.
‘It’s not like there was a will… there was nothing to argue about. What was there, only a shed and a dry yard?
‘Their sister Breda is now the last in the family. This is the end. No one knows when it happened or why it happened.
‘The guards are hoping they will be able to find out when things happened.
‘The family don’t know and the guards don’t know why it happened. But something must have triggered it. It’s desperate. Some of the family are now thinking that maybe they had kind of lost contact with the lads a bit over the last few years… they are thinking maybe if they were more in contact, this might not have happened.’
As gardaí attempt to find out what unfolded at the remote farmhouse in north Cork last week, there is much speculation about what led Johnny Hennessy to kill his two older brothers.
But what has been established so far is that Paddy’s body and that of his brother Willie were discovered on the family farm after Paddy’s daughter Elaine became concerned when her father failed to pick up his phone.
A friend said: ‘Elaine lives in her father’s house in Mitchelstown with her three children and she tried ringing Paddy three or four times.
‘He didn’t pick up the phone so she went out to the farmhouse and found her father and her uncle’s bodies. She went out with her mother and they rang the guards.
No one knows how long the bodies were there.’
The alarm was raised shortly before midnight on Thursday night and Johnny’s body was discovered the following morning in a local river.
The grim discovery of the three brothers’ bodies was an ending no one could have foretold. But in his
‘There was nothing to argue about, only a shed and a dry yard’
‘One thing he dreaded was that he or any of them lost their mind’
quieter moments the eldest of the brothers, Willie, may have feared it was a possibility as he hoped against hope that none of his relatives would ever have to endure the mental anguish his mother suffered for much of her adult life.
A friend said: ‘Willie would say that the one thing he dreaded happening was that he or any of them would lose their mind… after watching his mother go through what she went through he would say, “I hope that never happens because losing your mind is the worst of all things”.’