Cavan family annihilation by a "brilliant Dad"

[DoinItFine]

Is anyone else reading all about what an amazing guy Alan Hawe was with mounting disbelief and fury?

He stabbed his wife and three sons to death in a frenzied attack and then hung himself.

But poor him, he must have bern awful tortured. And he went to mass all the time.

Great Dad

You know when you read awful threads about abuse on MN and then out it comes "he's a great Dad", and you think "what does a man have to do to losr that label?"

Well apparently you can murder your 3 kids and still keep the Great Dad title.

I agree about the shock factor, 7Days, but I think we have to wonder who is prepared to answer journalists' questions at such a time - I'm guessing people who were really rather far removed from knowing much about the family at all.

In my neighbourhood there is a "great dad" who has clearly been a bully to his now ex-wife and family. Well, it's clear to me, and it's clear to many of the women in his social circle who have privately spoken about their suspicions of him to one another. However, when these women have tried not to invite him to events or mentioned their suspicions to their husbands, their fears have been dismissed and minimised because he's a "great dad" who helps at the local football club etc. Had this man "suddenly flipped" and become a murderer, all the men in the area would have been shocked and amazed but the unsurprised women, used to having their fears and suspicions belittled, would probably be cautious about deviating from the "great dad" script - especially to a journalist.

I agree with others on this thread that men seem unable to confront the reality and enormity of male violence in our society.

And the murders were discovered by the "mother in law"

Even Clodagh Hawe's mother is being defined by her murderer..

I read they were all being buried together. Clodagh, the children, and their evil murderer.

I have no words.

I know.

Burying the murder victims with their murderer.

Sometimes Ireland really sucks.

But apparently that was the wishes of Clodaghs mother, who loved Alan and doesn't want him "demonised".

So it's certainly not just in the media.

Obviously the families are finding it so hard to reconcile his outer face with his inner monster that they're defaulting to the "brilliant Dad" side too.

Poor Clodagh had nowhere to turn.

Her own mother still takes her husband's side after he murders her and her sons.

The thing is though, it really shouldn't still be a shock by now, should it?

This has been going on for decades. "Oh he seemed like a lovely man".

We must realise by now that murderers are not Jack-The-Ripper, cartoon villain types? That people are multi-faceted and just because they sometimes smile or laugh or play with their children, it doesn't mean they are also not capable of terrible things?

If "we" (and by we I mean collective society) don't realise this, why is that? What can we change to make people aware of the truth?

I think saying"sometimes Ireland really sucks" is childish. These murder suicides happen all over the world, and with a white male "pillar of the community" there is universally this kind of biased reporting.

And it's the families who decide who is buried with who. It's not the media, and it's certainly not the parish priest.

Certainly in previous cases in Ireland, they have been buried separately, or the murderer has been cremated.

There's a difference between "he seemed like a lovely man", which concedes that he was not.

And the aggressive insistence that this man (and other family annihilators) actually WERE amazing people and brilliant Dads.

Read the Craicnet thread full of justifications of how of course this bastard must be buried with his victims and then tell me there is nothing culturally specific about what is happening here.

And Ireland very often sucks when it comes to treatment of women.

I don't really give a fuck if it "childish" to feel sad about that.

I would also be wary of ascribing things to Clodagh. We have no reports of previous domestic violence - the only hints have been about him being stressed at work.

For all we know she would be the first to want them to be buried together.

It may come out that he was a "house devil" or it may not. But speculating that she lived in permanent terror is ascribing clichés to her too. Just as he is being described in clichés.

He murdered his whole family.

It has already come out that he was a "house devil".

There is no interpretation of that reality that allows for him being a great guy.

Unless you think it's fine to stab your wife and kids to death, write two suicide notes, and then kill yourself in a much less traumatic way.

We see the same cognitive dissonance all over Relationships. "He's a great dad though" "No he's not, great dads don't do all the stuff you've just listed".

The media are the ones with the detachment to choose appropriate quotes or else give them appropriate context, not the shocked community trying to come to terms with the horrific event. We can't tell them off for not having mentally adjusted to living next door to a murderer before the reporters come knocking.

If you think this is an exclusively Irish problem, then I'm sure you are consoled in your not actually living in Ireland.

I do, and see it as part of a much broader global feminist issue.

Ireland is one of the places that buries the dead in (what seems like to us non-Irish) indecent haste, which doesn't allow much time for reflection and consideration on whether it might be better to bury the victims separately from the murderer, for example.

It's notable how little local people have to say about Clodagh - just that she was quiet, not sociable, and not as involved in the community as Alan.

Lots of people to stand up for him, including her family, and nobody to stand up for her.

It's not cognitive dissonance that makes people stand up for a murderer.

Olenna that is a very good point. The UK takes 2 weeks - we take 2 days.

Those who choose to bury all together in a knee jerk foggy horrified haze....how many wish later they had more time to decide?

What makes you think I don't live in Ireland ?

Or that I think this is exclusively Irish, rather than playing out with elements that are particular to Ireland?

There is always always always a controlling abusive man behind murders like this. Probably previously violent. Violence of this nature doesn't just happen in a vacuum.

He was a fucking nasty little shit who should be vilified and the language around him should reflect that. People don't just snap and become mass murderers overnight and that needs to be recognized. Not least by the press. They positively wallow in the drama of it (not entirely unexpected) however you can still make it dramatic by stating what he is.

And yy to Bertrand. The invisibilising of women. Women defined in relation to men.

The lengths people will go to excuse the behaviour of men.

You live in the UK. I remembered you from Brexit threads. NI, if I'm remembering correctly.

But please forgive me if I've gotten you confused with someone else. Which is possible.

Horrendous.

I used to work with a woman whose husband everyone loved - I always thought he was a bit off. Something about him made me uneasy. Anyway, he once beat her so badly he burst one of her kidneys and she was in hospital for a good long time - thankfully she survived.
The response from those around us was not 'fucking hell, let's support you to get away from this asshole.' But 'well X can be a big difficult, she probably pushed him a bit too far, he's a good bloke.'
The 'oh he's a good man/this is what you get when you push too far/poor tortured chap' narrative is alive and well.

So you know I live in Ireland, then?

Oh sorry, you're in ROI? I was mistaken.

It's funny how so many women suffer with mental health problems and manage to not murder their entire family in a violent way, isn't it?

If you don't understand that you can live in Ireland and not live in RoI, then maybe you should stop offering yourself as a commentator on Irish matters.