Concerns over death rate among men denied school

ONE-THIRD of young men from disadvantaged backgrounds, who could not get places in Limerick secondary schools four years ago, have died tragically, a parish priest disclosed yesterday.

Fr Pat Hogan referred to the scale of tragic deaths among young men in

Limerick when he officiated at the funeral Mass of teenager Richard “Happy” Kelly who had been abducted and murdered in April 2006.

The 17-year-old’s remains were found in a lake in Co Clare two weeks ago.

Fr Hogan, parish priest of Our Lady of Rosary, told mourners that a third of the boys from disadvantaged backgrounds, turned down for enrolment in mainstream secondary schools, have met tragic deaths.

He said that a special school that caters for boys who cannot get into secondary schools discovered that eight in every 100 of its students died before reaching the age of 20.

Fr Hogan said that on April 24, 2006, Mr Kelly was “somewhere called from his home, done to death, and buried never to be found”.

Fr Hogan said: “Can we not hear the violence, the madness, the evilness of those whom he knew. People who more than likely ate at his table. Names are whispered. Let them know that as people our secret grievous sins destroy us.

“There is no way forward but to admit what they have done,” the priest said. He told the killers: “You will find that you are treated with far more forgiveness and kindness than you ever gave to ‘Happy’.”

Fr Hogan referred to another missing man from the parish, Matthew Carroll who was last seen alive on June 8, 1999.

He said: “If those who know will not heed the tears of his mother— whose only wish is to bury her son before she dies— then you would not heed your own mother, not God himself.”