‘Noah was the light of my life, Imisshishugs so much’ – a mother’s deep grief laid bare
:: Fiona Donohoe is on a brave quest for answers, writes Nicola Anderson
HE WAS a young boy with “the heart of a lion”, one of his teachers said. His talents spanned a remarkable range – from being able to play the cello well to his great skills at rugby and basketball. And for his mother, he was the light of her life. Her only child.
When Noah Donohoe disappeared on June 21 last year, it was his mother Fiona’s darkest nightmare. For six days and nights she did not know what had happened to the 14-year-old boy.
And then came the worst possible outcome, with the unspeakable horror of learning that his body had been discovered, naked, deep inside a 1km-long storm drain in north Belfast.
Noah had drowned.
In what was described by PSNI Superintendent Muir Clark at the time as “one of the most unusual missing persons inquiries” he had ever dealt with, Noah’s belongings and some of his clothes were found discarded along the route of his final journey.
Barely able to speak at times amid her grief, Ms Donohoe’s courage and dignity was immense as she spoke of her suffering and of her determination to find out the truth of what happened to her beloved son.
For a youngster who had loved rugby so much, it seemed appropriate that she had sat down with former Ireland international Tommy Bowe for a TV interview on Virgin Media’s Ireland AM to say that she has not given up in her quest for answers around his death.
“Oh, I miss him so much, his hugs and his love,” she said.
“I have so many issues over the search and the police strategy and how it took six days.”
There was bitter poignancy in how Ms Donohoe revealed that Noah had been afraid of the dark. The storm drain was “pitch black”, she said.
Police said Noah went 950m into the storm drain and Ms Donohoe says she believes he “may have thought there was another way out”.
“He was found 20 metres from another manhole yet it took six days. I have questions to the police about why it took six days – what was their strategy,” she said.
The bond between the single mother and her only child was strong. So, when he failed to phone her at the agreed time, she instantly knew something was wrong.
“As a parent I had that feeling and something I felt just wasn’t right,” she said.
“I didn’t want to phone the police because I knew if I did that I was making it real that something wasn’t right.”
However, she decided to contact the police and huge numbers of the general public turned out to help the family locate the missing boy.
His bike was found in a cul-de-sac 24 hours after the police search began, and two eyewitnesses came forward to say they had seen a child cycling naked, “but thought it was a Father’s Day prank”, Noah’s aunt Niamh said.
Meanwhile, arising from the deep grief surrounding Noah’s death has come something positive. The family set up the Noah Donohoe Foundation to honour the “enthusiastic” teen and help children “realise the potential that Noah would have realised”.
Ms Donohoe said the parents who help run the foundation “have stepped into her shoes” and have been an enormous help to her in the last eight months. She also said they “would not let go” in the search for answers as to what happened to Noah.
For the heartbroken mother, life remains difficult. She said she is taking it “day by day and sometimes moment by moment”.
“Because of my sister and my family, and public support, it keeps me going. You can only keep going in this,” she said.
“He was the light of my life. He was so humorous. He used to do voice-overs and voices, and he would just absolutely crack me up.
“If I was telling him off, he would be able to turn it around so quickly and you would just have to laugh. He had such a way with words and an enthusiasm for life.”
“We did everything together. He could fit 25 hours in a day, he was just that type of person.
“I miss him so much because of his hugs and his love. I know he is protecting me and guiding me.
“I feel him constantly but it is just hard to not physically be able to give him a hug.
“I was able to give him a hug as usual and tell him I loved him and I am so grateful for that because I never knew I was not going to see him again and to have that as our final thing gives me some comfort.
“The most touching thing was his school, St Malachy’s, allowed us to take Noah back to the school on the day of his funeral as he would never return again.”
Noah’s family have called for a proper investigation into his disappearance and death, calling on the Irish Government to “bring pressure” on the PSNI.
‘I have so many issues over the search, the police strategy and how it took six days’