An appalling waste of two lives

A KILLING, a garda siege, the besieged killer taking his own life — the sequence of events whose final tragic outcome was the pointless waste of two lives is a not unfamiliar drama.

This weekend the setting was Coolyhune, Co Carlow, and the victims were two farmers, but there have been other hapless tales, with elements of Coolyhune and a similar denouement.

Almost exactly four years ago, six-year-old Deirdre Crowley was murdered by her father, Christopher Crowley, who then took his own life, on August 30, 2001, at a house in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, where he had been in hiding with the child.