‘I will look after your mammy’, promises Clondalkin father

Through his grief, a father summoned his strength and made a pledge to his dead children, promising: “I will look after your mammy.”

Jamie McGinn was grieving for two, his beloved wife Biddy lying gravely ill in hospital, still unaware that their little boy and girl had died in the Clondalkin apartment fire that left her fighting for her life.

The ashen-faced young father struggled to breathe as he held on to the coffins of Jordan, 4, and Holly, 3, on their arrival at St Anne’s Church in Shankill, Co Dublin.