‘It’s a tragedy. It’s hard to make sense of what happened’

IT was meant to be a day which would finish with one of the simple joys of family life for Brian and Mary Keegan and their two young sons.

They were due to attend a production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in a local school last evening in which the eldest boy, Glen, had a part.

But instead of the couple and their other son Andrew sharing in a communal celebration, Brian Keegan was left to face the horror of a terrible tragedy after his wife and two children suffered violent deaths in their home at Killakee Walk in Firhouse.

Gardaí who received an emergency call shortly before 11.30am yesterday quickly arrived in the quiet cul-de-sac in the south-west suburb of Dublin. They had to force open the front door to get in before making the gruesome discovery in the kitchen at the back of the house.

The Keegan house is at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac that adjoins the Firhouse Shopping Centre.

The back of the house looks onto the busy Firhouse Road, while the front driveway is just 20 yards away from the entrance to a day activity centre run by the Central Remedial Clinic.

Outside appearances betrayed little of the terrible events that had happened inside as the family’s 02-D silver Ford Focus was parked innocuously in the front driveway.

Over the following hours, members of the Garda Technical Bureau came and went from the building as they carried out a number of forensic tests.

They were forced to gain access to the house by climbing a step ladder over a side wall into the back garden in order to not disturb crucial evidence.

Fr Patrick Madden, a local priest who arrived to perform the last rites, said he had not personally known the Keegan family.

“It is just a terrible tragedy. It’s very hard to make sense of what happened,” said Fr Madden, who also took time to liaise with the principals of two local schools which the two Keegan boys had attended.

Assistant State pathologist Dr Michael Curtis arrived at the scene shortly after 2pm before carrying out a preliminary examination on the three bodies. A full post-mortem was due to be carried out at Tallaght Hospital last night after the three bodies were removed from the family home around 6pm.

As news that a woman and her two children had been found dead in violent circumstances filtered through the local community, women, teenagers and younger children gathered in small groups behind the garda lines which had been quickly set up to rope off the scene.

Inside the cordon stood a commercial white van belonging to Brian Keegan, who works with Brodericks, a grass machinery specialist firm based in Glenageary, Co Dublin.

It is understood Mr Keegan arrived home early yesterday morning after flying back to Ireland from a business trip to the US.

Just over 100 metres from the Keegan household, parents waited yesterday afternoon to collect their children from local primary school, Scoil Treasa, where Glen Keegan was a fourth class pupil.

Many local people remained tight-lipped when asked about the family out of a combination of shock and reverence to them

Speaking before a meeting with other staff to decide how to explain the death of a student to other children, school principal Michael Curtin, said everybody at Scoil Treasa was “devastated” by the tragedy.

Mr Curtin said the school was arranging to provide personal support for students and teachers, especially for Glen’s classmates.

A half-mile away in Scoil Carmel, a primary school where Andrew Keegan was a first class pupil, parents were also being informed of the deaths by the school’s management.

The principal, Ursula Martin, was not available for comment. However, Ms Martin advised parents in a statement that they should take time to explain what had happened to their children.

“As one of the children was in your child’s class, we suggest it may be pertinent to talk to your child this evening,” said Ms Martin.

“We are trying to put in place counselling and welfare services to help our school community to come to terms with this appalling tragedy.”

Three months ago exactly, residents in the estates near the Firhouse Shopping Centre were also shocked when two men were violently gunned down around 300 metres from yesterday’s tragedy in a suspected gangland killing.

Gavin Byrne, 30, who lived in the Firhouse area and his accomplice, Darren Geoghegan, 26, from Drimnagh were shot while they sat in their Toyota Lexus when they were lured to a quiet cul-de-sac in the Carrigwood estate.

“That really frightened everybody living in the area. But this is very different and in, many ways, is even more upsetting,” said one woman who wished to remain anonymous.