More than 150,000 people have taken part in Pieta House Darkness Into Light events across the country this morning.

The group is encouraging people to Wake Up up to the realities of suicide.

As transition year students at St Wolstan’s Community School, Celbridge, we are writing this letter on behalf of our year group to express our view that mental health is the poor relation within our health system.

I was listening, half-distracted, to the televised contributions from the various political leaders in the run-up to the vote for Taoiseach. 

There were around 100,000 people around the country out for the dawn walks for Pieta House’s annual Darkness Into Light fundraiser today.

450,000 Irish people suffer from the so-called ‘invisible illness’ of depression. Journalism graduate, Rebecca Maher, spoke to two Waterford men who decided to put pen to paper and document their own personal struggles of depression in the hope of inspiring others who may be affected by mental illness.

Last night ‘The Voice of Ireland’ presenter Eoghan McDermott made a startling confession about his past.

When psychologist Joan Freeman founded Pieta House, the national centre for the prevention of self-harm or suicide, it was to address a taboo subject that was little discussed and rarely understood.

A 16-year-old anti-suicide campaigner who died after a long battle with cancer had more of an impact than any politician, a Government minister has claimed.

DELIBERATE self-harm is one of society’s most un- recognised problems and its links to suicide must be recognised, the head of a suicide crisis network has said.