Cavan family annihilation by a "brilliant Dad"

The homily would have been written after consultation with the families though, and he would have taken his tone from their request. He would never ever have said anything that upset them. That's not his job. At all!

I think he was basically saying "We don't know what happened to trigger this, let's leave it for the guards investigation".

Blasting Alan old school style from the pulpit whilst his family is sitting there having lost 5 people would be calling vengeance on the dead whilst not being sensitive to the living, who are his parishioners and who he has a duty of pastoral care towards.

Of course the priority for him is the comfort of the living! That's his job!

"How such goodness could be destroyed? How such happiness could be invaded? How? Why? It is not for us to seek answers or to surmise about behaviour"

I am beyond fury at this. Just utterly, utterly shameful.

A lovely send-off for a child killer. "Let's not talk about what he did, that's too weird, let's just remember he loved his kids..."

Not for us to seek answers??? Yes, let's all just wring our hands and shrug our shoulders and get on with sweeping the whole sorry mess under the carpet. Absolutely shameful.

The emphasis on suicide is bizarre.
Had he failed to hang himself, I wonder what then would have been said?

The idea that this is a 'caring' man is sick and absurd. Why are they spreading this propaganda/his propoganda?

He was treasurer of the local Gaelic football club. Maybe there were some financial irregularities he was afraid would come to light, or that his family would be deeply ashamed of him if he took his own life and they found out so they were all better off dead. Not making excuses.. just trying to think of reasons for a man everyone was shocked about doing what he did. Sometimes these things can be staged too but doesn't sound like he was active politically etc.

Double page "Why?" article in Belfast Telegraph today refers to it as "murder-suicide" several times. Does not use the term "family annihilator" at all. Quote from clinical psychologist suggests killer wanting to spare family from perceived terrible world as motivation. "the virtue is trying to save their children from what they perceive to be unimaginable pain". No other motivating factors suggested, no discussion of cases where the killer was an out and out nasty controlling bastard who killed what he viewed as his property.

Interestingly, the psychologist prefaced his remarks by saying, "There's no idea or no understanding that makes the tragedy of murder-suicide or suicide completely palatable....(but) there are a couple of (ways of) understanding that I think can help people process the experience of it". So making it palatable and avoiding hurting anyone's feelings must be the most important thing, not examining other potential reasons.

The article talks about suicide and suicide awareness/prevention at length. All very laudable I'm sure. The article does not mention the phrase "domestic violence" physical or emotional abuse or make any reference to the number of women killed by their current or former partners.
The whole article frames the incident primarily as suicide, despite the fact that only one person died by suicide here; four died by ultra violent, terrifying and painful murder.

This obsession about not speaking ill of the dead is classic small town Ireland. They never stop to think that by eulogizing the husband, they are dishonoring the woman's memory, overlooking her suffering to avoid ruffling small town feelings.

If all reminds me of that horrible rape case in Kerry where a 72 year old woman was raped by a local young guy who broke into her home, almost as a 'lark' after getting blind drunk while out earlier that night. He was totally callous about it and clearly a very twisted individual. Yet still we had the comments in the media how he was 'never in trouble with police before' and 'came from a good family'. Made me fuming mad at the time. He committed a revolting, violent crime - who cares who he is? The focus should be on the victim, always.

Alan hung himself. The others were stabbed, strangled and hacked to death.

It was obvious who was the murderer. To release those details wasn't going to compromise any investigation. Yet the guards, as user pointed out, did seem to make it a bit of a mystery.

It's a bit inappropriate that the money in lieu of flowers is going to a suicide charity?

When all the people involved are dead, it's hard to see how releasing known facts could "prejudice" anything.

What "known facts"? Things you've read in the papers or on fb?

Alan Hawes being dead means there won't be a criminal trial. However, there will be a coroner's inquest, with a jury, and that's where the facts will be established and placed on the public record. It's not appropriate for the gardai to pre-empt the findings of the coroner's court.

They made a point of pretending that what had happened in the house was a mystery.

No. They released fuck all details to avoid prejudicing an ongoing investigation.

Just like they're supposed to do.

You don't make definitive statements about suspicious death - especially multiple deaths - until forensic details come in and the pathologist has made a report

Who said anything about definitive statements?

The police knew that Clodagh hadn't hacked herself to death with an axe.

They made a point of pretending that what had happened in the house was a mystery.

I wonder what their son's text was about? That was very strange.

It was interesting that people wanting to give money in lieu of flowers were told to support a charity for those affected by suicide, rather than a domestic violence charity.

Agree with the above ^

It's bollocks to say it's some institutionalised sexism, that they were protecting Alan. Jesus wept!

Oh ffs - it's standard operating procedure for every police force everywhere. You don't make definitive statements about suspicious death - especially multiple deaths - until forensic details come in and the pathologist has made a report.

The gardai did NOT make it known from the start that it was a murder suicide, nor did they state that it wasn't an accident. All they said at first was that they were investigating the discovery of bodies, described them as a family and gave their ages, and said they were not looking for anyone else in relation to the deaths.

Absolutely standard statement, and it would have been exactly the same statement had it looked like an accident when they walked in.

When the forensic team arrived and made an initial report, the gardai became more specific and they confirmed they were treating it as a murder suicide. But no more details would be forthcoming until the pathologist report was in (and maybe not even then). Again, totally standard. The gardai hadn't even released their names at this point - all that became public due to journalists interrogating locals.

It's not disingenuous at all. The gardai weren't "scratching their heads pretending they didn't know what happened", but were just following normal operating procedure of giving hardly any details to avoid prejudicing an ongoing investigation. Don't create unnecessary bogeymen

Yes absolutely Tulips, they were being massively disingenuous.

They made it known that
a) There were 5 people in the house: a man aged 41, a woman, and their three sons, aged 13, 11 and 6;
b) All 5 of those people were dead;
c) It was a murder-suicide, not a tragic accident;
d) No one else was involved

And then they made a big show of how they didn't yet know what had happened. So of course people are going to think "Well, it wasn't the 6 year old and it wasn't the 11 year old; there's a very very remote chance that it might've been the 13 year old but in cases like this it's almost always the father/husband who's the murderer. But they're saying they really really don't know what happened in this instance, so maybe...?" In pointedly failing to even hint at what they already knew - that Clodagh had been stabbed - they tacitly invited people to speculate that she had been the perpetrator rather than the victim.
I just find it repulsive.

I share your anger, user. The bland, non-committal statements set the tone. The guards were almost being disingenuous.

In the very first reports I read about this massacre, the police were extravagantly noncommittal about who was responsible - something along the lines of "It would appear that one person in the house killed the other people in the house and then killed themselves." They made it clear that they were certain that no one from outside the family was involved, but they were adamant that they reeaaaaaly couldn't make any definitive statements about which member of the household was the killer and that there was much work to be done before that question could be answered. Yeah guys what a riddler!!!!!! Who could have done something like this, eh?? The 5 year old, perhaps?!

It made my blood boil when I read it; and now that I know that when those statements were being made to the press, the police KNEW that THE WOMAN AND CHILDREN WERE STABBED TO DEATH and THE MAN HAD WRITTEN SOME NOTES AND WAS FOUND HANGED, and yet STILL insisted on scratching their heads and talking about keeping an open mind, I am fucking incandescent.

I do not blame Clodagh's mother. It was why I initially avoided any comment on the joint burial. I don't understand her choices, but I don't blame her.

My empathy is with Clodagh. I am thinking about what she went through in the last minutes of her life. She is a victim of the most extreme form of domestic violence. And, at least in a symbolic sense, she won't be free from her perpetrator even in death.

Poor woman. Poor children.

Quiet, withdrawn wives of charming extravert men are frequently victims of domestic violence - it is almost a symptom.

My heart aches for them - for the hideous deaths they suffered, and for the sad, frightened, constricted lives that they must have led.

I hope he rots in hell for the pain he has caused.