Monageer inquest hears tragedy details

Adrian Dunne asked his family priest days before killing his wife and children if people who take their own lives can get into heaven, an inquest heard today.

Fr Richard Redmond told the hearing into the tragic Monageer murder-suicide deaths the father-of-two telephoned him one night shortly before they were found dead.

The curate recalled Adrian, 29, was concerned after listening to a US Catholic radio show about suicide that claimed people who kill themselves don’t go to heaven.

Fr Redmond assumed he was talking about his brother James, who had taken his own life a month before, and spoke with him about his concerns, he told the inquest.

Days later Adrian was found hanged in their Moin Rua home in Monageer, Co. Wexford, his wife Ciara, 24, was strangled and their two girls, Lean, five, and Shania, three, were smothered.

The night before the murder-suicide Fr Redmond, increasingly concerned about their welfare, called at their home after being alerted they were planning their funerals.

When he challenged them about burial arrangements discussed with funeral director Joanne Cooney, Adrian laughed it off, insisting it was normal.

“Ciara said: ’Do you think we are going to harm ourselves and the children’ She said no-one would harm the children,” Fr Redmond told the inquest.

Ms Cooney said the Dunne family’s attention to detail on their funeral arrangements down to the Dora jeans that the girls would wear in their coffins set off alarm bells.

When Ciara insisted all the Dunne family should be buried in the same plot, Ms Cooney remarked that those plans might change when the girls get older and meet someone.

“Ciara replied: ’That will never happen,” Ms Cooney said. “That reply and the Dora jeans made me suspicious.”

Ms Cooney said she held off on signing off paperwork with Adrian and Ciara the day before they died to give her time to alert gardaí about her concerns.

When a number of phone calls went unanswered over the weekend, Fr Redmond asked another priest Fr William Cosgrave to call at the house, where he found blinds closed and untouched milk on the doorstep.

After he raised the alarm, gardai broke down the back door and discovered the family dead.

Adrian was hanging in the hallway from an attic rafter, dressed in a Glasgow Celtic FC jersey, blue jeans and barefoot.

Ciara was lying on her back, with a black eye, arms by her side and a man’s tie tightened around her neck.

Dr Michael Curtis, deputy state pathologist, said her perfectly manicured nails suggested there was no sign of a struggle.

Some bruising around the skull indicated she may have been knocked out before being strangled.

Family members broke down sobbing as they heard about the two girls next to her on the settee, toe-to-toe with each other, legs slightly over-lapping and each clutching a soft toy.

A pillow was placed neatly above them.

It was most likely they were smothered, while Adrian, who had a small amount of alcohol in his body, hanged himself, said Dr Curtis.

Dr Sean Nixon, Coroner for north Wexford, said it was obvious from the evidence that Adrian and Ciara both loved their children.

“There’s no doubt about that,” he said.

“The children were always well cared for, always at the centre of Adrian and Ciara’s lives.

“Their lives were taken in a misguided belief they were going to somewhere better.”

A jury of two women and four men found Ciara, Lean and Shania were unlawfully killed and that Adrian died through suicide.