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.”

Wed, 07 Feb, 2018 - 00:00

Noel Baker

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.”

With that, Sarah shuffled her mother away.

There was little comfort to be given at the inquest into Alan’s death, which took place on June 13 when he was found, unresponsive in the bedroom of his aunt’s house on Knockbrogan Terrace in Bandon, Co Cork. A syringe was found on the bedroom floor.

Pathologist Margot Bolster told the inquest Alan would not have suffered and told his aunt, who found him, it was unlikely he could have been saved if he’d been found earlier.

In addition to heroin, present at potentially lethal levels, he also had methadone and two anti-depressants in his system.

Alan Kidney, John Kidney and Fergus Kidney.

Coroner Frank O’Connell recalled how Alan, aged 44, had given evidence at his brother’s inquest less than a year ago. He said it was “quite shocking” that three brothers, two of them twins, could all die in similar fashion, taken by heroin.

“I hope it is the end,” he said. “I hope it is the end of it, not just for you but for the people of this town. Someone is supplying drugs in this town.”