Carnage in Cumbria - Seeing the dark side of being human

WHITEHAVEN, Egremont and Gosforth might just as easily have been Quilty, Spanish Point and Mullagh, or maybe Courtown, Ballygarret and Knockbrandon. Or, if the truth be told, any shy, idyllic backwater on this island.

That such a tragedy has never darkened our lives is almost as difficult to understand as it is to understand why Derrick Bird imploded and rampaged through Cumbria on Wednesday killing 13 people.

One of the first to die was his twin brother David but Bird did not know the great majority of people he shot to death or the dozens more he injured.

He killed in a frenzy and at random. One victim, Michael Pike, aged 64, died for no reason other than the coincidence that he was cycling along a road just as Bird passed by.

What demons drove him? What terrible, unquenchable fury pushed him to do what he must have known was evil?

Was there no one he could have gone to to try torecover the equilibrium, the emotional stability, that might have prevented the massacre? There were suggestions that he had sought medical help but hospital authorities have dismissed the claims as inaccurate rumours.

Why has this never happened in Ireland? Or, sadly and more realistically, how long more before it does?

Thankfully, and this is probably down to luck or, maybe, our disposition to drown our great furies in drink rather than turn to extreme violence, we have never had to wake up and try to understand why someone, usually placid, has devastated their community in these extreme circumstances.

Irish destruction, the kind so many writers have built reputations on, is more often of the introverted kind.

We have never had to try to come to terms with the fact that the cheery taxi driver who brought us home from the pub last Christmas turned into a seething mass murderer, set on killing at random and causing as much destruction as he could before he ended the terror and tragedy by taking his own life.

We have never had to come to terms with the fact that a partner or a child is dead, never to come through the door again, for no reason other than they were in the wrong place at the very worst moment. The moment they crossed paths with someone gone insane and armed.

How would we cope with such a calamity? And, have we the support services that might stabilise an Irish Derrick Bird, Seung-Hui Cho, Thomas Hamilton, Michael Ryan, Jeff Weise or any of the other disturbed, deranged and dangerous people who might kill with such abandon?

As we shrug our shoulders and admit that we probably do not – as was proved on a smaller scale at Monageer – we can only offer our thoughts and prayers to those who have been exposed to the most destructive and lethal human darkness.

However, we can try to recognise the great hurt and emotional agonies that trigger such insanities in others and respond with the humanity that might have eased Derrick Bird’s torment and saved 13 lives in Cumbria.