A dark pall hangs over the country once again and a family destroyed
THE deaths of Eoghan Chada and his brother, Ruairi, are the latest tragic murder- suicides involving families in the country.
In March, Cork man Martin McCarthy drowned himself and his three-year-old daughter in Ballydehob.
It was believed that he had been afraid that his wife Rebecca was going to take their daughter Clarissa to the US, where she was originally from. The father and daughter were found in the shallow water off a shingle beach just a few hundred metres from their remote family farmyard.
In 2008, Diarmuid Flood killed his wife Lorraine, son Mark and daughter Julie before setting fire to their home and turning a shotgun on himself in Clonroche in Co. Wexford. His wife, Lorraine Flood, 38, was a former Rose of Tralee contestant and a cousin of Irish international footballer Kevin Doyle.
Just hours before the tragedy, Flood had taken his children swimming at the Ferrycarrig Hotel near Wexford town and staff remarked how he took great care with the children.
Gardaí have never been able
‘Waking up to a living nightmare’
to establish why her 41-yearold husband acted as he did but it was believed he was suffering from depression.
Another tragic event involved Adrian and Ciara Dunne and their two daughters, five-year-old Leanne and three-year- old Shania, who were found dead in their home at Monageer, Co. Wexford, on April 23, 2007.
It emerged that Adrian and his wife visited an undertaker just days before their deaths to make detailed arrangements for a family funeral.
The undertaker contacted the authorities but social workers could not take action as there was no out-of hours psychiatric service.
In 2010, Una Butler was devastated after her husband, John, smothered their twoyear- old daughter Ella and strangled her six-year-old sister Zoe. Mrs Butler, from Ballycotton in Co. Cork, was at work when her husband, who had been suffering f rom depression, doused himself in petrol and crashed his car into a tree. Last November, she told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that she was ‘waking up to a living nightmare every day’.
She called for the reopening of an inquiry into the HSE’s treatment of her husband’s case after an internal review was carried out without her knowledge.
She said at the time: ‘ I’m still trying to accept what had happened – that Zoe and Ella, their lives were taken by their own father who did suf- f er with depression. And that’s why I believe that spouses or partners should be involved. Because, when you are living with somebody that’s suffering with their mental health, it not only affects them, it affects the whole family.’
The 43-year-old father had been under the care of the HSE’s mental health services from November 2009 until he was discharged in August 2010, three months before the tragedy.