Charelville brothers’ mother: ‘I prayed my twins were ok on journey home’

The mother of the twins stabbed to death by their brother in north Cork earlier this month has told how she prayed they were ok as she travelled from Waterford to their home.

Helen O’Driscoll and her husband Thomas had been in Waterford buying their nine year-old sons Thomas and Paddy a handmade miniature wagon before they found out that the tragedy was unfolding.

“I just asked Jesus and our Blessed Lady to not let it be true and I just kept praying until we got up home,” she said in an interview with UTV last night.

“When we got up home, I never saw more cars and gardaí. I got out of the car, I did not know what was wrong and a lovely garda came up to me and all he said was ‘Helen, your boys are gone’. But they said the doctors are in there with them and they tried to help them. At that stage, I broke down.”

Mrs O’Driscoll said she spoke to one of her twins, Paddy, 15 minutes before he died.

There was no sign of anxiety among her children when she rang, she said.

“Paddy said to me “mum did you get my wagon?”. I said ‘I did son, I’ve got it in the back of the van for you’. So, I said you and Tom Tom will have to help daddy and Jonathan, to put the wheels on it,” she said. “He said “right mummy, right right, right”. They were so happy.”

The twins had been third-class pupils at the nearby Banogue National School in Croom, Co Limerick.

At their funeral Mass the congregation heard they were “loveable rogues” who were fun-loving and energetic.

“They loved playing with their friends. They were very honest, direct and straight,” local priest Fr Tom Naughton told the congregation.

“They said it as it was. They knew how to say sorry and were famous for their hugs.”

Helen and Tom O’Driscoll have been living in a caravan in the garden of the house since the tragedy took their children from them.

Ms O’Driscoll said she cannot bear to live in the house where the killings occurred.