We’re all shouting out for the truth
How mum & sister’s campaign shed light on sinister secret life.. but dark secret remains
THE mood in Ireland plunged on Monday night as revelations about mass murderer Alan Hawe finally started to come clear.
The teacher brutally killed his wife Clodagh, 39, and sons Liam, 13, Niall, 11, and six-year-old Ryan in August 2016.
He was exposed on RTE as a controlling porn addict and cross-dresser with a dark secret that drove him to kill.
Clodagh’s sister Jacqueline Connolly, 38, and mother Mary Coll, 66, sat with interviewer Claire Byrne and opened up to the nation.
They said until last week while the world appeared to move on they were stuck in grief and despair with no answers why.
Despite one of his last wishes being that the “family” should get “the rest” of the information from his counsellor, the details have still not been released.
An inquest into the Hawe family’s deaths confirmed the devoted mum and children had been unlawfully killed.
Afterwards, Hawe had hanged himself.
The case was closed. But for Jacqueline and Mary, there was no way to move on – for them, the case remained open, a devastating tragedy there was no coming back from.
Apart from a handful of media interviews, for more than two years they kept their silence, faithfully supported by people close to them.
They tried to find answers themselves – desperately hoping to make some sense of why Alan Hawe committed this atrocious act on their loved ones.
They called for meetings with gardai but always left with the same questions they turned up with.
Officers had carried out their investigation and as far as they were concerned it ended with the conclusion of the inquest.
Because the gardai probe was not a murder enquiry, they were not dutybound to take it further.
And the limits of the inquest presented the same issues – questions were answered, but not the one Jacqueline and Mary most needed solved. So Byrne’s special was a revelation that brought Ireland to its senses and pulled the situation back into sharp focus.
Now it’s not just Jacqueline Connolly and Mary Coll who want the truth – the whole country is shouting for it.
Hawe’s actions, initially put down to pressure at work, stress and spiralling depression, had been filed away in 2016 as appalling but unpreventable.
But this week, with the revelation he was a cross-dressing porn addict, the image of Hawe changed from a pitiful man who lost control to an evil monster who took the ultimate control.
And with the understanding his final and darkest secret still remains unspoken, the country is now clambering for the truth in support of his victims’ loved ones.
It is vital the truth is unpicked so we can finally have comprehensive investigations into all domestic murders.
As a community we need to be able to learn from this tragedy.
We need to be able to identify abuse, respond to it and prevent it.
Broken bones and bruises can constitute domestic violence, but experts say they only amount to about 10% of the problem.
The rest is hidden, coercive, passiveaggressive, calculated and unhealthy control. It’s time to say it as it is. It’s time to admit we have got it wrong and we need to pull aside the veil of apparent respectability that proved so deadly for Clodagh, Liam, Niall and Ryan.
It’s time to topple the pedestals that help disguise the truth and support the women – and men – who suffer in silence.
Jacqueline Connolly and Mary Coll have spoken up for Clodagh and her children.
Now Ireland has spoken up for them too. And the authorities must now listen – and act.
His darkest secret remains hidden and the country is demanding to hear the truth
MIRROR REPORTER
YESTERDAY