Parents ‘stayed by murdered son’s bedside while he was in a coma’

AN 18-YEAR-OLD murder victim’s funeral Mass heard yesterday how his parents maintained a three-day vigil by his beside before a life support machine was turned off.

Darren Coughlan was set upon by three others at Old Cratloe Road, Limerick, at around 10.15pm on Friday, November 4, and as a result he received serious head injuries from which he died last Tuesday at the Mid- Western Regional Hospital.

Frank O’Dea, parish priest in the Corpus Christi parish said he was deeply moved by the manner in which Darren’s parents, Eugene and Bernie, coped while their son lay in a coma.

“I was touched by the way Bernie and Eugene were able to say that they did not want any other mother or father to go through what they were feeling. The natural reaction of most of us is to settle a score, to get even. But Bernie and Eugene, genuinely feel today what Christ was able to say on the cross - ‘Father forgive them’. The people who took Darren’s life must be brought to justice, but let us leave the seeking of that justice to the proper authorities.”

Fr O’Dea said in recent days people were asking why there is so much violence in our society and why did Darren die.

He said: “Unfortunately there will never be a satisfactory answer to the question ‘why’.”

He said they had to have the courage and strength to take the path of forgiveness.

Fr O’Dea said: “Celebrating the funeral Mass for an 18-year-old son and brother is not what parents or family could have expected or anticipated. We can only imagine the sense of pain and sadness that Bernie, Eugene and family are experiencing at this time. The sense of support that the family have received over the past few days has been a tremendous comfort to them. The community of Corpus Christi and particularly Pineview has once again rallied round to express in very practical ways our sense of care and concern for one another our sense of care and concern for the Coughlan family.”

Gardaí are trying to trace a red car seen in the vicinity of the killing on Friday, November 4.

Meanwhile, gardaí are also continuing the murder investigation into David Nunan, aged 25, from Southill. His body was found with bullet wounds in a laneway in Parteen village on Friday, October 28.