A village silenced by the weight of grief

Parents gathered together in little huddles and went in and out of Ballinkillen NS yesterday, to hear how best they can tell their own children about what happened to Eoghan and Ruairí Chada, while just a few hundred metres away Kathleen Chada was attempting to take in the enormity of her loss.

Kathleen, née Murphy and a native of the village about 7km from Bagenalstown in Co Carlow, was expected to remain at home in the two-storey house she built with her husband Sanjeev until the bodies of her two boys are released.

That could be this evening at the earliest, or maybe not until tomorrow, with a joint funeral expected to take place on Friday or Saturday in the church where the boys’ grandmother, Patsy Murphy, is sacristan and where Ruairi was baptised five years ago.