Mental illness - Allowing our fear sustain cruel taboos

It is almost two years since John Butler, driven to the darkest of places by unrelenting depression, killed his two daughters, Ella, who was six, and her two year-old sister, Zoe.

He immediately left his home in Ballycotton, Co Cork, and took his own life, ending a sequence of events that changed lives, shocked and frightened his family, friends and community to their very core.

He, or more correctly his illness, left his wife Una with a burden any empathetic person might imagine beyond what is endurable.