300 families gathered at the Unitiarian Church on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin on Saturday 24th September for the biannual AdVIC Remembrance Day, a special ceremony held every two years for families and friends bereaved through homicide.
The families were made very welcomed by Reverent Bridget Spain, Minister to the church who read movingly prayers and offered a very peaceful space for all to participate in the service.
Emily O’Reilly, Ombudsman and Information Commissioner, was the guest speaker at the event. Her speech brought comfort and solace to all.
Having drawn on her personal experiences of friends who suffered a homicide,
she spoke with great empathy and relevance to the families present telling them
that their presence to the service couldn’t change anything that has gone
before, but it was an immensely humane thing they did to dig so deep as to
come together in solidarity with the dead, and with the living who continue to
protect and preserve the integrity of the memory of those they loved.
|
|
I want to begin by thanking Advic for the honour of being invited to speak
here today.
It is a difficult and a humbling space to be in for anyone who
has not been directly affected by the death through a violent act of someone
who they loved most intensely.
And while this ceremony undoubtedly gives some comfort to the family and
friends of all of those who are remembered here today, I sense that it must
also have taken no small degree of courage for many of you to get through those church doors.
Yes, there is comfort in solidarity, in sharing, but alongside your own pain
and loss, you are also enveloped in the pain and loss of so many others and
that too is hard to bear. But in coming here you have given the gift of
your presence to others and that is a supremely generous act.
What you have suffered is unknowable to those who have not been through what
you and your families have been through. I am aware of what Advic does in
relation to its advocacy work and its various campaigns on legal matters but
I sense that nothing is as important as what we are witness to here today;
the remembering of the dead, the bearing witness to what they suffered and
what you continue to suffer.
I suspect that one of the most painful aspects of a death through homicide is the failure
Of the wider world fully to acknowledge the enormity of what has happened,
The particular nature of the grief that follows.
I have been afforded some small insight into that space.
In recent years, I have attended the funerals of two people - victims of homicide - whose
families I knew and have seen the aftermath of those deaths. I recall one
of those funerals, with the media massed outside the church door and the
family therefore unable to greet those who had come to mourn alongside them.
I remember the photographers who bowed their heads and lowered their cameras
as the hearse passed by and those who didn't. But what I remember most about
that day was the utter silence in the church, everyone present literally
shocked into silence, a silence so at odds with the quiet chatter even
laughter that can permeate the funerals of others.
As time passed, and in both cases as the trial date approached and later as
they took place, I was further struck by the pain inflicted by that process.
I recall one relative speaking of how, as the verdict was about to be
announced, and squashed into a court bench at the back of the room, she
could feel the hot breath of strangers on her neck as they jostled for a decent view.
In another case, a mother could not even cry in court, as to do so would
offend court procedures and the fairness of the trial.
At every stage both families wrestled with their acknowledgment of the right
to due process and to fair procedures for the accused on the one hand,
and what they privately saw as the screaming unfairness at times
of that same process when it came to their rights, when it came to justice for them.
The experience of both of those deaths showed me that when someone dies
through homicide, normal grieving cannot be accomplished at least not for a
very long time. In the ordinary run of events, even the tragic deaths of
children, or the sudden deaths of parents or partners, a particular space is
entered. The funeral must be arranged, financial affairs must be sorted,
the will dealt with- a painful yet ordinary nonetheless process.
But when someone dies through the violent act of another, entire new layers of pain
and loss and fear and anger are piled upon the original grief. It must even,
at times, be impossible to grieve as one is propelled instead down the road
of criminal investigations, of court cases and eventually a verdict that may
or may not give some form of closure.
For some of course, there is no verdict; there is a body not yet found
or a perpetrator still evading detection.
How impossible to even begin to find closure in those circumstances.
And it is the failure, I suspect of what we call the "system" to acknowledge
those essential differences, that racheting up of the pain of loss, that so
many of you find immensely hard to bear.
In my work as Ombudsman, a central theme of the complaints of so many people
who come to my Office for help, concerns the need for a public acknowledgment,
for a genuine engaging with and understanding of what they have gone through.
They don't want heads on a plate, they don't want money, and they want nothing less
than a humane response to what they have been through.
Recently, a mother and father whose son died as a result of careless, botched care
in a Dublin hospital, found some solace only after the consultant charged with
overseeing their son's care, wrote a personal letter to them in which he
openly and genuinely apologised for what happened. That was four years later.
I have also observed, when a tragic event happens, how attuned people come
to the external environment and how that environment is acknowledging them.
We get many cases where a mundane death on a busy hospital ward is treated
as of little importance by nursing and medical staff. A priest isn't called;
the tea lady barges in; the clothes of the deceased are casually left in
black sacks, any number of events, tiny in themselves yet often which cause
immense anguish to the families of those who have died.
I imagine that the stories of many of you here today are replete with
similar incidents, when the enormity of what the person who died went
through and what you continue to go through are not acknowledged by all of
the agencies with which you will have to interact. I know that the manner in
which families are treated in courtrooms is still a major issue; little
thought given to their at times emotional fragility, the ongoing horror of
the memory of the violent death and the effect of proximity.
There are of course many things that you cannot be protected from but it cannot be beyond
the capacity of the system to offer some comfort, some mantle of protection
that costs nothing but makes the ordeal just a little more bearable.
Your presence here today cannot change anything that has gone before, but it
is an immensely humane thing you do to dig so deep as to come together in
solidarity with the dead, and with the living who continue to protect and
preserve the integrity of the memory of those they loved.
Those who have died can no longer speak; have no capacity to tell their story, to reclaim their
truth from what may well have become an unrecognisable thing fashioned by media and by judicial distortion.
The late Dominic Dunne the American writer whose daughter was murdered by
her boyfriend at the age of 22, wrote a famous piece in Vanity Fair magazine
about the murder trial and of his family's fight to get justice for her and
for her memory. Much of what Advic is about is conveyed in that lengthy piece.
The Dunne family were ordered by the court not to cry, not to make
any sound, on pain of being ejected. They witnessed their daughter's
character being mangled by the defence team, endured the media onslaught,
A defence crafted so as to deny what they saw as reality and truth.
At the end he writes, "We loved her and we knew she loved us back. Knowing
that we did everything we could has been the beginning for us of the release
from pain."
But that was his experience. Others will have different ways of finding that
release; still others may never be released. And it is your absolute right
to grieve and to be as you choose to be. You don't have to be brave victims,
or standard bearers for a particular worthy way of being, of dealing with
your loss. You don't either have to arrive at a point of forgiveness simply
because that fits a certain, external narrative. Every death is individual.
Every aftermath is individual too.
Joan Deane of your organisation invited me here today. Her brother Ger Philpot
is an old friend of mine and it was through that friendship that I have been
able to get some small insight into what all of you have lived through. I salute Joan
and her family and everyone gathered here today. And I thank you again for the humbling
honour of being invited to speak. |
|
John O’Keefe, special adviser to AdVIC who was a wonderful Master of Ceremony
on the day as well as being a member of the Brooke Singers.
The Singers provided some beautiful and soulful singing with a wide range of
songs including You’ll Never Walk Alone, Gwahoddiad, Let it be Me, Sunset
Poem, Danny Boy and Rachie
Their contribution to the day was both emotional and uplifting and was appreciated by all.
A lot of family members contributed to the event, including Gemma Coleman, Barbara Clinton, Bill Maher and Noeleen Lee who read out the names of loved ones who have been murdered over the past few years.
|
|
As names were read out and hauntingly beautiful tunes were played by
Raymond Mc Cormack on the tin whistle, family members came to the altar to light a candle in their loved one’s memory.
Other families contribution included Sharon Mitchell
who wrote and read a moving and beautiful poem dedicated to her son Jamie;
I would like to welcome everyone here
To remember the loved ones they hold so dear
My own loss, is my eldest one
A warm, kind and caring son
His life was taken in a shocking way
I miss him more with every day
My family is broken it’s torn apart
A heavy weight lies on my heart
His brothers, uncles, cousins and friends
Can’t believe his life has come to an end
The papers called him a man but he was only a teen
And to all of us he will be forever nineteen
The loss will be with us each day and night
And every day is always a fight
To try to get through and battle our sorrow
And look ahead to another tomorrow
We love you Jamie and we always will
Your memory in our hearts will always stay still
We silently talk and sometimes shed tears
As days become months and months become years
For now we want you to watch over us all
And be there whenever we need to call
But also we want you to rest in peace
And help this sorrow and heartache to cease
We love and miss you always Jamie.
Sally Rodger introduced the bulb ceremony and explained the healing symbolism as each family was given a bulb to take home with them.
AdVIC would like to thank Gerry Dooley of Orchard Garden Centre in Celbridge who donated the Bulbs
Jean Casey a great friend of AdVIC who has been involved with adVIC from before its formation and has helped so much with our counselling service read a closing meditation.
The event offered families the opportunity to jointly remember their loved ones with a special remembrance book filled with photos and letters
Refreshments were served in the nearby O’Callaghan’s hotel. It was an occasion for families to share their experiences and renew acquaintances.
AdVIC would like to thank everyone who help to make this event a great success especially Marion Nolan for taking on the project of organising the event. |
