Killing puts end to childhood freedoms

It was a terrible thing to happen, and if it happened in England or the US you wouldn’t have given it a second thought, the man said.

But it had happened on his doorstep, near Inch beach in East Cork and, he said, people couldn't stop thinking about it, talking about it or wondering what to do about it.

"People aren't leaving their children out of their sight. They aren't even leaving them outside. There's kids who won't be let outside the door of their own houses until this guy is caught," he said.

And this, he said, in a neighbourhood where, up to last Tuesday, "you could leave your coat hanging on the door with your wallet in the pocket and it would still be there in the morning.

"We always took it for granted that this was a safe place," he said, but now people were frightened "wary of their kids".

However, his belief that this terror would last until the person responsible was caught may be underestimating the changes brought by Tuesday's terrible discovery at Inch.

The implications of the disappearance of Robert Holohan have been burned hard and deep into the national psyche.

Midleton is a cheerful, bustling town, a place where, up to now, it was safe for children to play on the streets or ride their bikes down the street.

Robert Holohan is a name which will be long remembered. It's the name of an innocent young boy who went out on his BMX bike, in the belief that he lived in a friendly, safe neighbourhood, and never came home.

He is lost to his loving family, his friends, his community and his nation, and we will not forget the agony of his family, the terrible, heart-rending search for him, or the olunteers who took part in it.

So even if somebody is caught in connection with his murder, it's unlikely that parents will allow their children to return to their previous freedom.

Things are utterly different now because to every parent comes the same thought: What if it happened to my child? The impact on the Holohan family is so terrible as to be barely imaginable.

The mind avoids even the barest thought of the nightmare being lived by Majella and Mark Holohan. It is too dreadful to contemplate.

Instead, we concentrate on how to prevent it.

Children, who up to now enjoyed a normal degree of freedom, will no longer be allowed to wander alone to the other side of the shop to look at some toy that has caught their eye. They won't be sent alone to the local shop.

Arrangements will be made to collect children who used to walk home from school.

We may never allow our children to return to the freedom they previously enjoyed in the towns and cities, the rural lanes and quiet roads of our country.

We're afraid to take the risk.