Couple's death may yield better knowledge of domestic violence

The window boxes and flower pots outside the pretty cottage at Carrigmore need watering, but there is nobody there to tend them. Sudden death has brought silence and an abrupt end to the careful husbandry that maintained the graceful gardens.

Since a sudden, inexplicable episode of violence terminated the lives of two French people who loved this quiet corner of south Tipperary, the shocked community in which they lived has been torn by mixed, and conflicting, emotions.

On the one hand there is the ethical feeling that, out of respect for the dead and their families, natural curiosity about the private factors that ignited fatal violence in the relationship of Louis and Chantal Bergeron should be set aside.

On the other, there is an awareness that there must be a legitimate public interest in so grave an event as a double death by shooting. People are asking themselves: were there any signs that should have been responded to, anything that could have been done to avert this tragedy?

The bodies, each of which had suffered a single, fatal gunshot wound, have been released by the coroner. But gardai, although they have indicated that nobody else is being sought in connection with the incident, have by no means closed the file on the Bergeron deaths.

In fact, a methodical investigation of the circumstances is only just beginning. Given the extreme improbability of a double accident, it is apparent that gardai are dealing with, at the very least, a murder and a suicide.

"Our involvement doesn't stop," said one Garda source. "We're still investigating a murder, in spite of the fact that our assumed culprit is no longer amenable."

A team of gardai will be involved, probably for some weeks, interviewing friends and relations of the Bergerons and the many local people who knew them. The gardens of the cottage, located on a steep and narrow by-road three miles from the town of Clogheen, will be searched further, as will the surrounding area.

The developing inquiries are likely to reveal a pattern that local people reluctantly hint at. Some now concede that there had been indications of trouble in the relationship. There were signs that Chantal Bergeron (42) was frightened of her husband, who was 12 years older, and it is said that on occasion she would run from the house, sometimes in the middle of the night.

In public, however, there was apparently no evidence of strife. Chantal, a handsome woman, liked to keep fit and in shape by running several miles on the quiet roads around the cottage early in the morning.

During their frequent outings together to traditional music sessions in Jeremiah Ryan's, known as "the farmyard bar", a few miles outside Clogheen, she was the life and soul of the company.

Vivacious and gregarious, she mixed easily and happily with the local crowd. "She was the bubbly one in the relationship. If it wasn't for her, no one would have known them, " said one source.

Louis was more reticent and subdued, although this may partly be accounted for by the fact that, according to those who spoke to him, his English was very poor.

The shotgun found in the cottage near the bodies was licensed in his name, and he was a keen fisherman, in an area where tributaries of the Suir, according to the guidebooks, "afford good sport for the angler".

But Chantal was also very much in tune with nature and the abundant wildlife. She often hunted alone with the shotgun, and told acquaintances that she could "go into the forest and smell a fox-run".

The couple had been coming to the locality for years, and finally decided almost two years ago to buy the cottage and move there full-time. Poignant signs of domestic industry abound around the house, freshly planted young trees and flower beds, a neatly stacked pile of logs in one corner, ornamental latticework put up on either side of the front door.

"They were very social when they were out, but I think they were very private in one way," observed a slight acquaintance.

In one sense, the outcome of the Garda investigation may seem to be open-and-shut, a waste of time and effort necessitated only because of the copybook legal requirements.

However, gardai attached to special domestic violence units in every divisional area are gradually accumulating an important store of experience in this widespread social (and criminal) problem. The Bergeron investigation may yet provide another important case study from which wider lessons can be learned.

The key issues, and ones upon which policy is rapidly changing, concern intervention and evidence. Some Garda officers in charge of domestic violence units now operate a strongly interventionist policy, adopting the maxim of prevention being better than cure.

Those officers, when they encounter a woman who has clearly been the victim of violence but who refuses to give evidence against the perpetrator, will now routinely treat such a woman as a hostile witness. This is regarded as a necessary strategy to effectively tackle a problem which would otherwise remain hidden and continue in secret, perhaps eventually with very serious consequences.

There is no suggestion at this stage that there was actual prior evidence of violence in the Bergeron case. The Garda inquiries may elucidate whether or not the relationship problems were indeed cumulative and serious, or whether a flash episode of rage or temper led to the terrible events at Carrigmore.

Meanwhile, the distress and shock among the community is mingled with a deep sense of sadness at the sudden loss of a couple who were well liked locally, and who plainly shared a profound appreciation of, and respect for, this beautiful corner of rural Ireland, its music and traditions.