Protecting the little innocents

LAST week in a quiet community in West Cork, three-year-old Clarissa McCarthy was killed by her father.

The whole nation has been deeply saddened and shocked by her death. Over the last 12 years, more than 30 children in Ireland have been killed by their parents, and while there are no international comparators, a deputy State pathologist commented “he was struck by the numbers of murder- suicides in families in Ireland since he took up his position in 2004”.

Understandably, in the aftermath of such deaths, commentary and analysis focuses on how a loving parent could have become so desperate and so despondent that he could not only take his own life, but also the life of his child or, in some cases, all of his children?