When the undertaker came to take Cathal, I would not

leave. I was outraged that he was being taken – our boy.

I wanted to be alone with him now that the public was

gone. The other members of my family dutifully left

when asked. But I stayed. I screamed something at the

undertaker. My uncle Pat finally removed me.

Death took us by the hand, and we emerged from the funeral

room, and slowly made our way through the large crowd. I

remember the narrow path as people stood sombrely in a

long line on either side. The hospital seemed to cast its huge

shadow over us as we made our way to our cars. Slowly we

followed the hearse the fifteen miles to the Cathedral of the

Assumption in Thurles. The family were in the front car, still

in disbelief that the body of their youngest member was being

carried in a coffin to repose in front of the magnificent altar

of the Cathedral. He was too young. This should not be.

Extract from When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family. Published by Veritas.

of this unwelcome reality. I felt physically sick as the lid was

closed and stared in horror as the bolts tightened. I could feel

my anguish and my fear increase as I got the last glimpse of

my child. I felt so helpless. What could I do? How could I

bring him back? Is this real? We were all thinking the same

way. Insignificant humans, powerless to prevent death

claiming our child. Death had taken him, and the grave

would claim him. We could not prevent it. Breda wrote that

she was mentally screaming, ‘no way, I’m not going anywhere

& neither is he. How did anybody think they could take away

what was rightfully ours. He was our baby’. Deirdre also

found this moment unbearable, and recalls ‘wanting to stay

with him all of the time, not wanting to be taken away from

him. I remember the screams from all of us when they took

Cathal away, and we had to leave’.

Extract from When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family. Published by Veritas.

with Cathal to be for the family only. Frances records that

she was 

hysterical, just hysterical. I resented every single person

in that place that was not my immediate family. I felt

this should have been for us only. He was ours and we

needed that time alone with him. I wanted to tell them

all to get out. I remember the insane comments people

made by way of comfort to my mother: ‘God needed him’;

‘he’s a little angel now’; ‘sure he didn’t suffer.’

I could see that every comment cut my mother’s soul.

It was those who just cried with her that made any

difference at all. One of my best friends didn’t come to

the funeral or the wake. She said by way of explanation

that we were too emotional a family and she couldn’t

take the excess of grief she knew we would express.

It seemed like an eternity, but finally the long line of people

passing by ceased and the door was closed. Our family were

again alone with our child, and I felt the loneliness of losing

Cathal increase in the silence before the final prayers. I

listened sadly and incredulously to these prayers, and waited

for the coffin to be closed.

 Extract from When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family. Published by Veritas.

remember whose hand went first. But each of us

automatically planted one hand on the next. We were

declaring our unity as a family that would always include

Cathal. Somehow his chest felt hollow, as if it would

cave away. I couldn’t bear the signs that he had been

hurt. The blood compacted in his nostrils, the massive

bruising on his neck, behind his shirt collar, and, easily

imagined, down his entire back.

We took our seats and the doors were opened.

The death of a child is what bereavement

psychologists call a particularly enfranchised loss.

What that means is that it evokes widespread sympathy. And

so it was with us. A great number of people slowly made their

way into the room. It was very moving for me. Yet it was also

an ordeal. I was too devastated to really appreciate it until

many years had passed. I was trying to come to terms with

Cathal’s death and meet all these people. Some friends of my

childhood came to sympathise, and I found this very

emotional. Somehow my own childhood and that of my lost

child became entangled in my mind, as I met those childhood

friends long unseen.

 Extract from When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family. Published by Veritas.

marble; my brother, a cuddly, lively, warm little boy lying

here like an empty shell. I traced his face, the face I

loved, his eyelids, his forehead, lips, then his entwined

fingers & bloodless hands. I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. I just

needed to be with him. That’s the only feeling I had.

 Frances recollects how austere the hospital funeral home was: 

Cathal was not at a funeral home. He was in a very small

stone building on the hospital grounds. The building in

its austerity reminded me of a monk’s cell. There was

none of the comforts of a funeral home. And that

seemed fitting to me. His body had filled out since

I’d seen him the year before. I remember thinking that

he would have been strong and broad like my uncles.

The doctor told mammy how strong and well-cared for

he looked. That broke us even more. The needlessness.

The waste.

Extract from When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family. Published by Veritas.

then that it hit me very hard that Cathal was not coming

back to us. He was lying in his uniform in the white

coffin, and I knew for certain that he was gone from us

for good, that there was no way we could get him back.

I felt immense grief and sadness. I remember the black

marks on his fingers from the accident. I recall how white

he was … and all of us crying uncontrollably.

Breda’s account recorded at the time shows the trauma of the

family as we clung together, and how the numbness

prevented her from crying:

The coffin lay open … I could see a bandage. I walked

closer & saw what will always be the worst moment of

my life: my brother Cathal, dead. I pictured him

sleeping beside me in my bed, I would sit & look at his

sweet innocent face … this was different. He was white,

colourless, his lips were bloodless but there was blood

around his mouth, his tiny nose was bruised & his

forehead a strange shape. But the worst of it was the

bandage; they had shaved his beautiful hair off, the hair

he was so proud of, which, despite all my dad’s stern

warnings, he refused to cut short.

Extract from When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family. Published by Veritas.

coffin. I cannot imagine the trauma suffered by Mary at

seeing Cathal that evening, and I did not distress her by

asking as I write this book. She still finds it very painful to

talk about the events of those days. All I remember is wishing

that he was buried and that it all might go away. I envy people

who have their deceased children laid out in their own

homes. They seem to get relief from the pain. It is like

holding on to their children for as long as possible. But, I

could not bear to do this, and Mary recently told me that she

felt the same.

For Bill, seeing Cathal in the coffin was ‘hell’. He screamed

and ran away, but I made him return and see the corpse of his

brother, knowing, in my less confused state of mind, that it

would be a cause of regret to him if he did not do so. I sensed

then what I know now: that it is important to experience as

much of the pain as possible immediately after a death, and

that it is particularly important to see the body of the

deceased. It brings home the reality of the loss and is essential

for proper healing. Failure to do this, or, as sometimes

happens, being numbed by tablets, can prolong the grieving

process and lead to complicated grieving. Bill confirms how

seeing Cathal’s body brought the reality of the death into

focus. ‘I was devastated,’ he wrote. ‘I think this was the first time

it hit me … the worst moment of my life to date.’ Deirdre also

confirms how the distressing reality then began to take hold:

 Extract from When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family. Published by Veritas.

and anger, but I think that the horror of that entire

experience either anaesthetised me for the demands of the

funeral, or else it made everything that followed less

overwhelming. That evening we had to return, as a family, to

the funeral room attached to the hospital. For a time I grew

to hate that hospital because of the bad memories it held for

me. Our small family tried to console each other and pray

together as we stood beside the coffin, before the public

arrived to offer their sympathy.

 I sensed the fear and the pain of my family as we entered

the funeral room, which was beside the morgue. Having

experienced the coldness and bareness of the morgue there

was some comfort for me that the funeral room, while sparse,

was at least warm. For some of my family it was different.

They had not yet seen Cathal after the post-mortem, and were

unprepared for the trauma of seeing him laid out in a coffin.

 Extract from When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family. Published by Veritas.

to negate the coldness I had experienced. My legs could just

about carry me as I emerged, crushed, from the morgue. I

walked robot-like to complete the formalities of the postmortem, and I still feel angry at what followed. I am still

conscious of the formality of that interview with the

pathologist who asked me various questions for his records.

Did he not realise that I was traumatised? Could he not have

summoned some brief expression of sympathy even if he did

not mean it? Of course, I realise that doctors cannot allow

themselves to be subject to the sadness they witness every day.

It would be overwhelming and non-productive. But surely

some small expression of sympathy, some acknowledgement

of the pain experienced by the individual, would not be too

much to ask for. It would have made it easier for me as I

answered his questions about Cathal. At a three-day seminar

on bereavement in Ballinasloe some years afterwards, I met

other bereaved people who felt as I did. I really hope that

nowadays the human element as well as the professional is

considered in the training of medical people.

 Extract from When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family. Published by Veritas.

sheet that covered Cathal. I hardly recognised my child.

When I had seen him on the previous day in the hospital he

had been warm, his soft hair resting lightly on the pillow.

Now I saw this pale corpse, his head bandaged, in this cold

place. I could see the great black marks on his shoulders and

his side, showing that he had tried to turn away from the car

when he had rounded the corner and crossed the road. This

memory is the one that reminds me of his last seconds, as I

cycle by that place every day. I felt his forehead, and now

I understood what the coldness of death really meant. It was

an icy coldness that somehow sapped the humanness from

my child.

Extract from When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family. Published by Veritas.