Charleville tragedy: ‘Just 24 hours earlier these lads were full of life, full of beans’

The crowds had dispersed, and the white-suited Garda technical experts were busy at the back of the house as a young woman came to pin yet another bouquet of flowers onto the wrought-iron gate.

She tied the flowers to the gate and paused for a moment before blessing herself and getting back into her car, moved by the horror that had unfolded in Charleville on Thursday.

It was here at the neatly maintained russet-coloured bungalow at Deerpark on the Limerick Road that nine-year-old twins Tom and Paddy O'Driscoll died.

The bodies of the twins, who had just begun third class at nearby Banogue National School, had remained at their home overnight awaiting the arrival yesterday of the Deputy State Pathologist.

Arriving shortly after 11am yesterday, Dr Michael Curtis, accompanied by Supt Pat McCarthy of Mallow Garda Station, entered the house. He spent about 50 minutes examining the two bedrooms where the boys had died before departing for Cork University Hospital to carry out the postmortems.

At 12.15pm an undertaker brought out the coffins, and the hearses stopped on the road to allow the boys’ family have a moment with them near the house.

Grieving parents Tom and Helen O’Driscoll wept as they clung to the two hearses carrying their beloved boys whom they had dropped off at school the previous morning.

Settled members of the Traveller community, Tom and Helen had later travelled to Waterford to buy a miniature traditional Traveller barrel caravan for the twins. An informed source said the family were keen for the boys to learn about their Traveller heritage, and yesterday the caravan stood near the house.

Local curate Fr Tom Naughton, who visited the family on Thursday night, led relatives in a decade of the rosary beside the two hearses on the road outside the family home.

“It’s hard to think that just 24 hours earlier these lads were jumping out of their skin, full of life, full of beans, like all nine-year-old lads would be – and then for this to happen, it’s incomprehensible.”

Just 15 minutes’ drive away in Buttevant, where the twins’ older brother Jonathan was found, there were no flowers, no trace of the Garda technical examination and no clue to what had happened here. Just silence. Anyone affected by the tragedy can call the Samaritans around the clock for free at 116123, or can email: jo@samaritans.org