Irish Examiner view: A violent week’s harsh lessons

Violent, family tragedies are writ all too large across this week

Flowers placed at the entrance to the O'Sullivan family farm at Assolas, near Kanturk, Co Cork, where a father and his two sons died in what is believed to be a dispute over plans around a land bequest. Picture: Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision

Violent, family tragedies are written all too large, and all too worryingly across this week. A father and his two sons died on their farm on Monday in what is believed to be a dispute over plans around a land bequest in Co Cork. That no-one other than the victims was, it is, believed involved adds incomprehension to heartbreak in that harrowing situation.

In Dublin, the bodies of a mother and her two children were discovered in their Ballinteer home two days later. Concerned neighbours had alerted gardaí. There have been suggestions that the three bodies may have been in the home for up to four days after apparently being strangled. The age of the victims — 36, 11, and six — darkens that tragedy.