he was killed. At one stage I contemplated putting up a cross

where he died. I wanted people to remember what had

happened. I wanted people to know that we had lost a child.

 I actually received permission from the County Manager to do so.

This thinking soon changed. As I have said, Cathal is always

in my heart; I don’t need any concrete reminders of him. He

lives there, always as a thirteen-year-old child. He will never

grow old for us. I do not always feel sad when I see reminders

of Cathal, but probably a little numb, for it is still hard to

contemplate the loss of my child. It is hard to contemplate

this young boy lying in the cold earth, as I drive past the

graveyard. It is not possible to forget. But who would want to

forget one’s child? These moments of sadness are generally

brief, and I rarely think of him for the rest of the day. Life

goes on, and most of the time is happy and peaceful.

You will recall that the shamed person is either more than human or less than human. It is, therefore, vital to have the courage to be imperfect, to accept our blemished humanity. The shamed person should, also, be aware of different situations that cause or trigger shame, and to practise assertive techniques to combat those people who seek to spray us with their core shame.

death of a child, my response is that it is not, but that the

surviving parents and siblings can be peaceful and happy.

That is how I am. I am happy, and have peace of mind. But I

think of Cathal almost every day, even after eighteen years,

and sometimes I feel a deep sadness and a sense of loss. I

think of Cathal because I always remember my family, alive

and dead, in my brief daily prayers, and because the graveyard

where he lies is on the road from my house to Thurles. I rarely

visit his grave. The memory of him, his face and his voice, are

engraved on my heart. Mary, however, finds some comfort in

visiting his grave every Sunday. I know, too, that he is forever

in her heart; she who remained at home from work so that

she would always be there for him and for all our children.

Bradshaw is probably the best source on this. He tells us that the first step is to confront our toxic shame, because it thrives on secrecy. Confronting it also means sharing our feelings with others, and finding someone who will love us unconditionally, even if, at the beginning, we do not believe that this is possible. Counselling offers an excellent and safe location to further externalise the shame by exploring it, using art work and writing about it. This involves recalling as many shaming events as possible, naming them, and allowing our feelings about them to emerge.

happened and how we experienced it. Writing the book has

been a more painful experience than I anticipated, and I

hope it will help my family as well as others who read it.

Although I am the author, every member of the family has

contibuted. Their written accounts show how differently

people grieve. Some of my family have come to terms with

this most painful loss better than others. As far as I can see,

this is one of the few books that allows male and female

siblings to express in their own words how the death of a

sibling affected them. Any books I have read on the death of

a child use parents’ accounts of how their surviving children

subsequently felt. This book will show the feelings of siblings

in their teens and early twenties, and later on as mature

adults. Bill was only seventeen when Cathal died, Deirdre was

nineteen, Breda was twenty-one, and Frances twenty-two.

on grief and bereavement for my thesis. Some of the material

I read was entirely academic, explaining the feelings of grief,

and the tasks of grieving; others had a more human touch

and were a celebration of the deceased. When I wrote my

thesis I combined the two, but it still had a largely academic

bias, and would have been of limited help to those suffering

loss. This account is neither of these two approaches. It is not

about Cathal. It is about our experience of losing him. It is

about the brutality of sudden death. It is not embellished in

any way, and it is not an exercise in self-pity.