Healing the rift - Carrickmines funerals begin
Willie Lynch, 25, his partner Tara Gilbert, 27, and their children Jodie, 9, and Kelsey, 4, will be buried in in Bray, Co Wicklow, tomorrow and what seems set to be a heartrending week will conclude when the funeral of Sylvia Connors, her husband Thomas Connors, 27. and their three children, Jim, 5, Christy, 2, and Mary (five months), is held in Wexford on Friday.
Already, in the days since the halting site tragedy, the debate about how this society treats Travellers, and vice versa, has reopened and reached a new level. The conditions in which so many citizens of this State live in are unacceptable but so too is the suggestion that responsibility for resolving this age-old issue lies on just one side of the equation. This is not the week to resolve these issues but it is certain that the tragedy will provoke an open, honest and hopefully successful healing of this terrible rift in our society.
