Editorial – Tragedy unites a community

THEâ€Ë†UNSPEAKABLE tragedy that struck the Gilmore family on a sunny Sunday afternoon has laid an almost palpable pall of gloom over much of Tuam, Belclare, Cortoon and North Galway. The reverberations of the deaths of two little children have gone wider even than this locality. All over the country people have responded to the news with horror. All road deaths are terrible, but the snuffing out in an instant of the lives of two-year-old Kate and her baby sister Grace is particularly awful.[private] The grief that has descended on their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and extended family is a dreadful burden, and it is understandable and appropriate that they have asked to be allowed to mourn in private. But the Gilmores and the Newells are part of a wider community, in which their roots run deep. As they bring their beloved children to the Mass of the Angels in Belclare, and afterwards to their place of repose, they will be surrounded by a loving, caring and empathetic community that wishes only to support them in their hour of need. That is the essence of the Irish way. Unlike other cultures, we do not shy away from the reality of death and bereavement. It must come to us all, we hope in the fullness of time, when the talk among our survivors will be of a life well lived. But when it comes cruelly, the proverbial thief in the night, snatching lives that have hardly begun, this is when the support, the discreet, almost silent solidarity of a community is most valuable. In offering our condolences to the bereaved parents and relatives we continue a time-honoured tradition that is of immense worth. It is at times of sorrow and crisis that the essential values emerge, and community comes into its own as a soothing and ultimately healing force.[/private]