Cavan family annihilation by a "brilliant Dad"

I don't disagree.

But there are two responses when some one commits murder, disbelief, and I told you so.
This guy belongs to the disbelief side.

He was the local schoolteacher, and involved in the GAA club. Everyone in the village would have known him, and spent time with him.

There are no conflicted feelings about Clodagh and the boys. But for him there are.

How do you reconcile the nice community minded family man with this deed?

There's also the undercurrent of not speaking ill of the dead, and another undercurrent of mouthing nice platitudes in public rather than anything of substance.

Just some additional thoughts really

It makes me so sad how willing we are as a society to excuse male violence, and to erase women. Feminist Current says a lot of what I want to say.

I hate that people stand up and say "oh, but he was such a great dad, he'd do anything for anyone". If his wife thought that, I'd eat my hat. I am pretty sure if you dug under the surface, he was a controlling and unpleasant father and husband. because you only have to look at his final act to conclude that. It's not impossible that he was a simply marvelous chap who decided to slaughter his wife and children out of the blue, but let's whip out occam's razor and admit that's the least likely explanation.

I come from the town where that man murdered his wife and daughter at the swimming pool.

Every single article said about what a good man he was and how out of the blue it was. Every single one.

Utterly sickening coverage as usual. So he managed to put on an acceptable public face prior to brutally murdering four innocent people. This does not merit being spoken about as if this was some inexplicable tragedy with a poor, tortured protagonist who deserves our sympathy. Why do these men always get the main focus of the story and the biggest appeal for sympathy? Oh yes, because they're men.

This sort of description seems to feature in every article about family annailators

the profile of a man who kills his family “is a middle-aged man, a good provider who would appear to neighbours to be a dedicated husband and a devoted father.”

Which may explain why in the shock of hearing the news so many who knew the family say " but he was a great dad/husband", becuase that is the face that was displayed to the public. And they can't wrap their heads around the man they thought they knew, and who he actually was when push came to shove.

I'll go and see if I can find it, but I read something in s a psychology journal (I think) a while ago that mentioned a form of Narcissism being part of the FA make up.

Link to Guardian article.

This kind of reporting happens all the time, I read one the other week titled "father found dead with his three children after family trip to theme park". No, he killed them all and their mother (not mentioned until about half way through the article) and then he killed themselves.
I saw the article linked by OP on feminist current and the first comment was some kind of hogwash about maybe he had paranoid schizophrenia and we shouldn't be casting aspersions against dead men. Even when they've battered their children to death with a hammer.
This is also why the family courts take DV and threats seriously in contact cases, yet we all have to pretend that wives who don't want exes to have access are vindictive lying bitches, rather than mothers who are genuinely scared their ex might turn out to be "a loving father who just cracked".
Sorry for ranting. This kind of reporting is a classic example of how much we are all gas lighted (gas lit? ) about male violence and it gives me the rage

He murdered 3 children and their mother brutally. If anything is the opposite of a good father and husband that is it. And don't tell me he was a perfect loving non-controlling supportive partner and father before this. Because the chances are that he wasn't.

I just read a good article about this which was written by an Irish journalist and reprinted in the Guardian. It is about how Clodagh has been erased from the story completely. It is awful and so telling that this is how the story is reported. There was almost identical coverage of a similar murder-suicide in America where all coverage was about how wonderful the murderer was. This is not usually how women are portrayed when they kill their children. I'm so fucking pissed off about it.

Sou

There are 4 types of family annailators apparently

and the great dad thing seems to be part of the profile

And if he's a "great husband", what is a rubbish one like?

The man was a murderer. His children must have been terrified. And then he killed them. And he murdered his wife.

What kind of cognitive dissonance is going on in this community?

Another one?!

Why? What on earth posesses these men to do it

Agree completely with everything you've said. Outrageous.