Clodagh Hawes family speakout

[oldbirdtree]

www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/clodagh-boys-never-stood-chance-9367017

I am so sad for them. Everyone on the outside could see the madness of that monster being buried with his innocent family but they were (understandably) to deep in grief to make that decision. I'm so sorry they have to live with this horror

So sad, and horrendous that the monster is buried alongside his poor innocent wife and children, they should've dumped him somewhere else entirely, he didn't deserve to be part of their funeral. A monster.

Yes, v good article.
Written by a woman.
Where are the male journalists making a point of distancing from this atrocity?

I feel physically sick reading about this. What makes it so bad is the way he killed them. It would have been up close, personal, protracted and incredibly violent. And the children would have been terrified and not understood why their father turned against them. Then each one would have known they were next and they couldn't escape. I want to retch I really do. I would have their bodies removed and interned elsewhere. Men like this don't deserve to buried with an epitaph in my opinion. Cowardly, sick bastard.

Anything one writes in such horrendous cases needs to be weighed carefully up and I sincerely hope I am not being inappropriate here. There have been a few similar cases in France, and at the bottom of it is always a man who has constructed a facade of a successful life and is desperate for status and esteem in the eyes of his family and community (at least, that is how it is analysed post hoc, but quite convincingly I think). The fear of being exposed leads to this murderous violence, but why or how I don't really understand, maybe because I am not a man.

but why or how I don't really understand, maybe because I am not a man

I dont think there will be many men who understand it either, whataboutbob

No probably not. But I can't get away form the fact that rape, and most murders are committed by men. Here is not the time and place, but family annihilation is not usually carried out by women.

That BT article is great. I am so fed up with the victims being eclipsed by family annihilators.

whataboutbob - they are not limited to France or Ireland. There are at least two that I know of in England in the last year. Horrific

I agree its usually men but every single man I know would be as utterly appalled at this story as any woman I know

I don't think it is inappropriate at all, whataboutbob. It may well have been what happened.

I do wonder if the 'fall from grace' is something quite minor really, like he put the proceeds of his handball team's Christmas party money into his own personal bank account and gambled it away or something stupid. And somehow, rather than be unmasked in the community as a petty thief, in his mind this justifies what he later did.

I assume the reason for his 'fall from grace' affects other local families and so they are respecting their privacy in not speaking about it. There is a very clear reference controlling behaviour too. What an awful, awful crime.

Yes, NAMALT, ssd - true.

That is not the point though.
When these (thankfully rare) horrific crimes happen, it IS usually men that commit them.

Poor Clodagh and her sons.

I agree its usually men but every single man I know would be as utterly appalled at this story as any woman I know

Possibly, but most of the men in spoke to were very much of the good man snapped and mental illness is a terrible thing and aren't you an appalling old man hater talking about family annihilation?

The Irish journos who covered this iirc were all 'oh poor Alan', including very notably a female journalist in the Irish Times whose articles (and defence of her articles when the skewed attitude was challenged by writer Linnea Dunne) were nauseatingly ignorant of the reality of domestic abuse, and ignorant too about mental illness.

There was a thread here on MN at the time the murders happened.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/craicnet/2720336-the-awful-incident-in-cavan

Lots of links to the coverage in this^^.

I am very relieved (not really the word I am looking for) that Clodagh's family have spoken out and questioned their decision to have Alan buried with the wife and children he murdered in cold blood. I really hope they will take the step of having him exhumed and re-burying him somewhere else.

People are very conditioned to come out with statements to the effect that they forgive, and gestures like burial in a family grave are akin to that and come from the same conditioning.

Hopefully, the courage of Clodagh's family will encourage other victims to shake off the conditioning and make gestures that indicate their repugnance for abusers instead.

Hopefully it will also show people who press families to 'take the high road' or whatever other form of words was used to think twice about their motivation in seeking swift 'happy endings' to immense trauma. This includes people who don't want to acknowledge what really happened, or think about the implications, and generally prefer to look the other way when it comes to domestic abuse because it doesn't fit their idea of what a family is.

This reminds me of the case where an older adopted son murdered g s two young brothers. In Ireland maybe five years ago. In that case too the mother buried all three together.

I think if his family fight the exhumation and reburial there will have to be a legal battle.
But probably heard in camera?
But whenever the inquests are held, that's when the details of his fall from grace will emerge.
I notice it happened shortly before the new school year. He was a deputy principal. So what if he didn't have a job to go to because he'd done something terrible?
That would have come out when he didn't return to work.
Now, think of the wonderful words of praise that his principal paid to him.
Imagine if she said those words, while actually being one of the very few who knew the truth about his fall from grace??
Imagine if she knew why, even as the media were shaping this into a mental health issue and the priest was telling there family to bury them all together.
Lots more to come out.
My thoughts are with Clodagh and her children and her surviving family.
Rest in peace.

Something similar happened in a family from my parents church in Australia.

I didn't know the family, and had already left for the UK when it happened, so I don't know much about it, but there was a huge emphasis put on forgiveness of the murderer. There was one child who survived the attack, and I was told she had had a "vision" of her father coming to her in the hospital where she was, asking for forgiveness. My mother was very certain that forgiving him was the right thing to do.

When mothers have killed their children, there is often a similar narrative, though, regarding the mental health of the perpetrator. I think we just can't imagine killing our own children, and need some kind of extraordinary solution to the question of why someone else has done so.

We know that many mothers who kill their children are suffering from post partum psychosis but otoh we know that many men who kill their own children are simply angry, controlling, entitled men.

We prefer to decide in our own heads that it must be mental health issues because society does not really want to look at male entitlement. Society is also quite happy to thrown people with mental health issues under the bus. There are two unprotected and un-valued classes in this society - women and children (property and chattel) and those with mental health issues. There is one protected class.

We also prefer the route of forgiveness because the protected class must not suffer close scrutiny. There are unwritten rules at play here.

Does anybody know of any case in which a mother hacks her children to death? One by one?

Didn't think so.

Puerperal psychosis is a vicious, vicious illness and that vast majority of those women unlucky enough to suffer from it don't harm their children at all in spite of what intrusive thoughts they might be having.

There was a tragic case of a mother killing her sons in south west Dublin a few years back.
May they rest in peace.

This case was heartbreaking. This paragraph I feel is extremely important to anyone in an abusive relationship:

domestic violence, especially the silent type where there are no obvious warning signs, just like Clodagh’s situation.

She had no idea she was in danger. If she had known she would have acted to prevent it and safeguard the boys and herself.

Some women in emotionally abusive relationships think they're 'safe' because the man has never been physically violent. Or if he has, they dismiss the incident/s as minor.

I don't know if Hawes had been physically violent previously, but a significant % of abusive men who kill their partners with no previous history of physical violence, according to recent research.

True, Pacific.

It kinda sounds as if her family were unaware of any domestic violence. I wonder if it automatically goes hand in hand I.e. if annihilators are previously physically violent or not.

Cos it's possible it comes from a different place, psychologically.

I wonder if any studies have been done on the perpetrators behaviour prior to it.

Her family sound like they were blindsided and had no idea he was capable of anything, which I suppose is why they went along with the "brainstorm" angle at first.

I suspect he was either messing around with a pupil, or it was money.

I wonder how far away the inquest is....

X post with Gloria. Very interesting.