Cobh woman starts campaign to tackle anti-social behaviour that led to partner’s death
Sam Byrne with a picture of her partner Seán Feeney, who passed away on September 3, 2023, after of a suspected heart attack while chasing teens who had been throwing stones at his house in Cobh. Picture: Dan Linehan
Seán Feeney’s car remains parked outside his family home, a devastating reminder of the young father who died just metres away last month after chasing youths from the property.
Paving stones for a patio remain in a pile in the back garden, not yet laid, another reminder of Mr Feeney, his hard work and aspirations.
Teenagers had been “terrorising the neighbourhood” in Cobh, Co Cork, and had repeatedly smashed stones, eggs and tins of beans at his young family’s home, one with such force that a framed picture fell off the wall.
While chasing the youths, he dropped to the ground and died of a heart attack.
Now his partner, Sam Byrne, is fighting for a new law in her late partner’s name to clamp down on juvenile crime and antisocial behaviour.
She is calling for families to be fined for juvenile misbehaviour; for more garda powers when dealing with juveniles and for interventions to rehabilitate youths to be mandatory.
She has contacted Tánaiste Micheál Martin, Justice Minister Helen McEntee, and other political representatives for her campaign.
Suburbs all over Cork are suffering from similar anti-social and aggressive behaviour from some gangs of teenagers, she said.
Cobh is not alone, she has heard multiple accounts from other suburbs like Ballincollig, Carrigaline, and Douglas which also suffer from anti-social and aggressive behaviour.
“I’m grateful he died of natural causes rather than by an assault or a knife. But if these gangs keep getting away with this behaviour, that is the direction it’s going in.
“This town has been affected, like every other town, with teenage antisocial and aggressive behaviour, and people are fed up of it.
“We ring the guards but they are under-resourced, the town has grown but the garda resources have not kept up.” The milestones are already passing just weeks after Mr Feeney’s death aged just 29. Their son Jay turned five on Friday.
“He asked if he could visit Daddy in heaven to thank him for his presents,” Ms Byrne said.
“He looks so like him it’s bittersweet. His face is like him, his hands, his walk. It must be so difficult for Seán’s parents seeing this little boy so like Seán.
“He’s doing well by day but he has night terrors. At night time, he screams out for his dad a lot when he’s still asleep. Milestones are hard but the little things can really floor you," Ms Byrne said.
The children keep Ms Byrne going by day but the nights are long and lonely.
But she has vowed to keep going to fight for changes in how juvenile crime is treated with her late partner’s mother.
“I don’t buy the excuse that kids have nothing to do: there’s rugby, GAA, football, scouts, Red Cross, a YMCA club, basketball, brownies.
“There’s so much for them to do. And also it’s a beautiful town to hang around in.
“We all hung around here as kids in groups but you had respect for people and you certainly were afraid of the guards and your parents.
“If you were up to something and you got caught, you would be in trouble. However, now, that discipline and control seems to have gone.
“I do feel for the guards, I feel they have no power in certain aspects, and that’s what I want to change.
“That could be through a fining system.
“But also, kids who are in trouble should have to deal with the authorities. It should be mandatory that kids who are in trouble engage with rehabilitation services.
“Guards have told me that when they bring some of these kids home, they’ve even been told ‘mind their own business and to F off’.
“Or ‘that wasn’t my child, you picked up the wrong child,’ that mentality.
“The lack of respect for the guards is unbelievable.
“The guards should have a little bit more power to deal with them and we feel a fining system for the parents would help.
“You have to hit them where it hurts.” Because so many people are affected by this and it shouldn’t be happening.” Ms Byrne said that gardaí said there were no criminal charges following her partner’s tragic death.
A preliminary post-mortem found that he had died of a heart attack.
Their home, on an autumnal Monday morning seems like a suburban idyl, with large, tidy lawns, leaves on the many trees turning red and gold, near Cobh but surrounded by farmland.
But Ms Byrne said that behaviour by a small minority of youths was “not your ‘knick-knocking’, ringing people’s doorbells and having a bit of craic. It’s pelting stones and eggs at windows, it’s shouting abuse, posting it on Snapchat.
“I’ve had apples thrown at the window that woke us up one night.
“We’ve had a can of beans thrown at the house.
“They’re throwing stones.
“They threw something at the weekend that actually knocked a picture frame off the wall.” The weekend of Mr Feeney’s tragic death, the antisocial behaviour in the estate had been “relentless”.
“It was very aggressive.
“There’s a lot of elderly around here and people have been terrified.” Mr Feeney had just returned from celebrating his father’s birthday on September 3 when there was a large thud on the door — the third bang from a stone or missile in a number of minutes.
Mr Feeney ran outside to see who the youths were and to tell them to stop.
“I followed him out and I stood at the corner here waiting for him to come back.” When Mr Feeney dropped suddenly to the ground seconds later just metres from Ms Byrne and their home, a young couple put him in the recovery position and another young neighbour ran to her house for help. Another woman rang an ambulance.
Gardaí came to help followed by the ambulance.
Ms Byrne called her partner’s parents to come from their home in Ballincollig.
“The ambulance basically had an A&E set up on the road for him.
“I just thought he was going to be put in the back of the ambulance and may be in CUH for a couple of weeks.
“And, and then they said, ‘look, he’s gone’ basically.
“So they put him into the back of the ambulance to just give him the dignity of having everything turned off there.
“Because there had been people taking pictures and recording on the road. His brother had to hold a blanket up over him when he was lying on the side of the street.
“But the ambulance and the guards were unbelievably kind and were so gentle with him. They showed him the respect he deserved.
“We were with him and we all got to say goodbye.
“All but my little boy, he was in bed.
“He just thinks Seán died at work because he works shift work.” The couple had been together for eight years.
Ms Byrne first saw him working in an Applegreen garage. She was instantly drawn to him and asked friends who he was.
“Because he was from Ballincollig, no one knew who he was on the island [of Cobh].
“So people were trying to find out who he was for me.
“My friends found him online and told me to message him. I didn’t at the start but a few glasses of wine later I did. He messaged me back. He said it was good to put a name to the face, and we started talking about rugby.
“After a few messages, he asked me out. We were together ever since.
“He was just unbelievable. He was my best friend.
“He was so kind and gentle and funny. He was a big teddy bear. He would’ve done anything for anyone.
“His funeral was massive, I think it just shows how much he affected everyone.
“He adored his granny and spent a lot of time with her.
“We both loved music, we loved rugby. We went off for trips in the car around the country.
“Our philosophy was, if it was a nice day, to just get out and enjoy life.
“We thought there’d be plenty of time in the winter when it’s raining to do your painting and put your floors down and things like that in the house.
“But he had major goals and ambitions. He worked really, really hard.
“He didn’t deserve to die on the side of the estate, that’s the bottom line of it.”
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