Mum’s heartbreak at losing three sons to heroin

“I’m heartbroken,” Carmel Kidney said, standing outside Bandon courthouse, not far from where her son, Alan, was found dead after a drugs overdose. “As a mother, I am devastated. I have three funerals to pay for.”

Three funerals, the third of which took place last year when Alan died, following on from the deaths — also caused by drugs, all involving heroin as the lethal component — of his twin brothers John and Fergus. Three funerals, three children gone.

“I have three funerals to pay for and I am on my own, all I’ve got is my daughter, Sarah,” Carmel continued, as the cold of a February evening bit. “It has been so hard for me here.”