Campaign rhetoric dialled down in wake of Manchester bombing atrocity

One minute, you’re at your first-ever concert wearing kitten-ears, waving a pink balloon and singing your little heart out. The next, you’re screaming, your innocence shattered, your bones broken, your secure and happy world fallen apart.

One minute, and everything changes for everyone. Things which seemed so all-consuming and a metaphorical matter of life-and-death only a short while earlier, suddenly subside in the face of horrific all-too-real death scenes in Manchester.

The dark shadow of the murderous attack stretched the short distance across the Irish Sea and hung over the roof of Leinster House.