The silence at the school gates tells its own story

IN A Wexford village silenced by the death of a family, it was the innocent classmates of murdered Mark and Julie Flood who tried to articulate the enormity of emotions involved.

At 10.30am yesterday, all 144 pupils of St Aidan’s national school in Clonroche came together in the sports hall for a short prayer service.

They had come to school early to meet counsellors and specialists brought in from the National Education Psychological Service.

These were sanctioned after Diarmuid Flood, 41, took his own life and the lives of his wife Lorraine, 38, and their two children on Saturday morning in a house near the school.

The junior and senior infants, who until last week were classmates of Mark, 6, and Julie, 5, joined yesterday’s service.

Afterwards, school principal Norma Doyle spoke of her pride at how the children had coped and even helped to support staff.

“The children prayed, sang hymns, played tin whistles and read out some of their personal thoughts, it was very moving to say the least,” she said.

Outside the gates parents admitted they did not know how to tell their children what had happened and praised the school for enacting its critical incident plan.

“It goes without saying that this morning has been very trying for the pupils, staff and parents of our school. The silence at the school gate told its own story,” said Ms Doyle.

St Aidan’s national school has 16 staff, including a caretaker, secretary, classroom assistants and dedicated officer for the large Travelling community around the wider parish of Cloughbawn.

All the teaching staff had extensive meetings throughout the weekend to help them deal with the inevitable issues.

Meanwhile, less formal meetings took place outside shops and the local mill as the 550 residents of the village helped each other to fathom the loss of a popular family.

“Some are talking about it and more have nothing to say,” said Joe Kehoe, who went to school with Diarmuid Flood at St Aidan’s three decades ago.

This week the Health Service Executive assigned counsellors to the village’s community hall to provide an outlet for locals.

Yesterday, the door of this community hall was flanked by parked media vans and the main road remained closed off.

Garda technical teams spent the day sifting through the shell of the Flood house wearing equipment to protect them from the high levels of asbestos, which temporarily suspended the investigation on Sunday.

Workmen said the pace of the forensic investigation at the scene was painstakingly slow and the road remained closed to facilitate this.

However, the presence of the cordon diverted vehicles away from Clonroche and gave local people an appropriate sense of silence.

In New Ross town hall a book of condolence was opened.

The Bishop of Ferns, Dr Denis Brennan, used local radio to address his flock and said the emotions of the Flood and Kehoe families were being shared by everybody in Wexford.

“The words of St Paul — ‘if one part of the body is hurting, all the parts are hurting’ — those words are so true. When Clonroche is hurting we are hurting too, we feel a part of that hurt,” he said.