THEY WERE the best of friends, Shane Rooney, Jason Clegg and Ciaran Mooney. No one in Banbridge, Co Down, has a bad word to say about them. They liked a drink and a bit of craic but there was no badness in them.

"They were just normal young lads," says a neighbour. "They could be a bit boisterous when they got together. They were always messing about but they weren't ones for fighting or getting into trouble. They wouldn't have hurt a fly."

Shane (17) had just left school and had secured a painting and decorating apprenticeship. Ciaran (19) worked for a voluntary organisation. Jason (24) was unemployed.

Last Saturday night seemed no different from any other. They went their separate ways, then met up later at Shane's house in Ashley Park. They listened to music and drank beer. Then they walked around the corner to Solitude, a local park, taking Shane's father's legally-held shotgun.

They picked a spot under the huge oak trees and sat there drinking. They didn't talk much. After a while, Jason Clegg took the single-barrel gun and pulled the trigger. He slumped to the ground.

Shane Rooney lifted the weapon, calmly reloaded it and did the same. There was a third bullet for Ciaran Mooney but he backed out at the last minute. He ran all the way to the police station. Eventually, the details of a bizarre suicide pact began to emerge.

"It's like a bad dream," says Shane's grandfather, Jim Scullion. "The boys didn't have any problems. There were no major traumas or crises. Our family is devastated. We have tried to look for reasons. We have sat down for hours and racked our brains but we can't figure it out.

"There are no dark secrets to uncover. The whole thing just keeps going round and round in our heads but there seems to be no answers. I could sit here mulling it over until the day I die and I would never know why my grandson did it."

DESPITE being the youngest, Shane Rooney seemed to have the strongest personality of the three. "He was the dominant one and the brightest," says a neighbour. "He tended to decide what they would all do. Jason was the sort who went along with the flow and Ciaran wasn't good at thinking for himself."

Shane was "a lovely fellow", according to everyone in Banbridge who knew him. "He was very friendly and outgoing. He was good-looking too - a big, well-built lad with a fine head of dark hair," says a family friend.

Shane had a sister and two brothers. His parents were separated but it was a far from unhappy home life. He lived with his father. They had a great relationship - he left him a Father's Day card and a tin of beer the day before he killed himself. They had planned a fishing trip together soon.

Shane visited his mother on the eve of his suicide. His behaviour was totally normal. She noticed nothing strange. Shane was very close to his grandparents. "He had started a wee painting and decorating job for us," says his grandfather, "and he said he would be back any day to finish it. Why should we have thought that something was wrong?"

Shane came from a well-known local sporting family. His grandfather is a former president of Banbridge boxing club. His uncle was one of the few men to beat Barry McGuigan as an amateur.

"Shane was an outstanding athlete himself," says Tommy Fee, his former PE teacher at St Patrick's secondary school. "In 23 years of teaching, there are only one or two boys I remember as being any good and he was one. He holds the all-time school record for the high jump, the triple jump, the long jump and the 400 metres. He won the 200-metre sprint every year. His grandfather had wanted him to join an athletics club. He could easily have represented Northern Ireland internationally."

Shane was not interested in pursuing such goals, though, according to a neighbour: "He didn't really follow anything through. He had a happy-go-lucky attitude. He didn't take life too seriously."

Although Shane didn't shine academically, his talent for art was evident at an early age. His life-size drawings of Norman soldiers were so good that they still hang in the assembly hall of St Mary's primary school five years after he left.

Nobody ever thought Jason Clegg would kill himself either. "Jason had a permanent smile on his face," says a neighbour. "He had a great attitude to life. He was always in good humour and he would never pass you in the street without saying hello.

"He was 24 but very immature. He didn't have a lot up top. He had difficulty relating to people his own age - that's why his friends were teenagers. He fitted in with them and they loved him."

Jason was known about town as "a bit of a scamp" and "a likable rogue". He wore leathers and was heavily into rock music. He smoked dope, friends say. He had a brother and two sisters. Like Shane, his parents had split up, but he had an excellent relationship with his stepfather.

Ciaran Mooney was the quietest of the three. Unlike the others, he had no girlfriend. It wasn't through lack of trying," says a friend. "Ciaran was game as a cock pheasant to get a girl but he never had any luck. He was very shy. Two or three words constituted a conversation for him."

ACCORDING to Ciaran's solicitor, Paul Downey, the suicide pact was hatched on Friday night during a heavy drinking session.

"The three boys started talking about suicide," says Mr Downey. "Shane told them that he had once attempted to hang himself and another time he had been about to shoot himself when he lost his nerve.

"Ciaran says that Shane then suggested they kill themselves the next night and they agreed. Ciaran was very drunk, he doesn't remember the details. He didn't even know if it was just a joke but he promised to go along with it because he and his friends did everything together."

The three made arrangements to meet at Shane's house on Saturday night. On Saturday afternoon, Ciaran bumped into Jason in town. "He asked Jason if the talk of suicide the night before had been serious," says Mr Downey. "Jason just laughed so Ciaran thought it had been a wind-up."

Friends and relatives say there was nothing odd about the lads' behaviour that day. They all seemed to be their usual carefree selves. Jason told a friend he planned to commit suicide that night but he said it in such a matter-of-fact way the friend thought he was joking.

On Saturday night, Shane and Jason went out with their girl-friends. Ciaran arrived at Shane's with a carry-out and sat drinking, waiting for them. Shane and Jason arrived back before midnight.

They played rave music and had a few drinks. Shane's father had several legally-held weapons for hunting. "Shane went to where the guns were stored," says Mr Downey. "They were locked up with a security chain around the trigger guards. Shane couldn't get the gun he wanted. The only one he could free was the gun with a detachable trigger guard.

"He fetched a screwdriver and screwed off the trigger guard, releasing the weapon from the chain. Jason was in another room dancing to music and Ciaran was searching for the dart board. Shane took three cartridges and handed them one each."

They took the carry-out and gun to Solitude Park, a popular late-night drinking spot with young people. "They sat down in the park but they didn't talk about the suicide pact," says Mr Downey. "Ciaran still didn't believe it was for real.

"It had been agreed that Jason would go first. They drank for a while, then Jason paced up and down for five minutes. At about 12.20 am., he lifted the gun. Ciaran at last came to his senses.

"He didn't know what to do. He started to walk away. He heard a bang. He turned around and saw Jason slump to the ground. He yelled at Shane not to do it but Shane shouted back not to be chicken. Ciaran kept walking away. Then he heard another bang and he started running."

Ciaran reached the RUC station minutes later. He said his two friends had shot themselves in Solitude Park. The police didn't believe him. He showed the cartridge which was meant for him. They found Shane Rooney and Jason Clegg lying close together.

"It broke my heart to see those big strapping lads lying in coffins," says Independent councillor Jim Walsh, who knows both families. Ciaran Mooney was taken to Craigavon Area Hospital suffering from severe shock. He is so mentally disturbed he was unable to attend the funerals.

A neighbour thinks Ciaran is as much a victim as Shane and Jason. "At least they're out of it. How is he ever going to pick himself up and get on with his life? He will carry this with him wherever he goes." Ciaran is still in hospital receiving psychiatric counselling. His solicitor doesn't know when he will be released.

"Everyone - the families, friends, the police and doctors - is looking to Ciaran for explanations for the suicide pact. He says he doesn't have any. Maybe he is blotting something out."

ANOTHER Banbridge-man blames a mixture of drink and macho culture. "They thought they were cool by planning to kill themselves. They were giving the fingers to life, showing they didn't give a damn. They probably thought `we'll shake up this town, do something that will make us remembered'. Going through with it was an act of bravado. Once they had decided to do it, it was difficult to back down."

About 2,000 mourners attended the funerals, including hundreds of young people. Many were crying; others sat on the grass outside the church, smoking and chatting.

Bouquets of flowers have been left in Solitude at the spot of the double suicide. There are scores of cards and letters too. Many express immense grief and bewilderment; others are lighter.

"Will you wait for me by Heaven's door with a bottle of Buckfast and a fag?", says one. Others, more ominously, read, "Big Respect. See ya. From the lads" and "See ya in three weeks".

Local people think it significant the young men drew up the plan to kill themselves on Friday 13th and express fears about a suicide cult. Many are anxious that Shane and Jason are not turned into heroes. Shane's grandfather, Jim Scullion, says he would hate to think there would be copy-cat acts. "I would like all the young people whom Shane was friendly with to know what this has done to his family. We would not want any other family to have to go through such torment.

"If only Shane and Jason could have seen the suffering and pain that they would leave behind."