Friends tell Kate Fitzgerald inquest of overdoses and struggle with depression

Friends of former public relations consultant Kate Fitzgerald told an inquest into her death yesterday that she suffered from depression and had taken several overdoses in the months leading up to her death.

Two friends of Ms Fitzgerald (25) told Dublin Coroner’s Court they found her body at her rented cottage at Harty Place, Dublin 8, shortly after 1pm on the afternoon of August 23rd, 2011.

After hearing that she had not turned up for work, Clare Brady and Brendan Bruen entered her cottage using a spare key.

They found her hanging in her bedroom. The blinds on the front window were drawn and a laptop was playing music in the background.

Rang for ambulance

When Ms Brady spotted her body, she ran out of the room and rang for an ambulance. Mr Bruen said he rushed over and took on the weight of her body. He then loosened the ligature around her neck and put her down on the bed.

“She was stiff and very cold,” he said.

A number of her friends described how she had suffered from depression from about 2005 onwards and how, in the months leading up to her death, she had taken a number of overdoses and ended up admitting herself into a psychiatric unit.

Céile Varley, who described Ms Fitzgerald as her best friend, said she had regularly suffered from panic attacks and had overdosed on about three or four occasions.

“Every time she made it clear that she wanted to die. She said the only thing keeping her alive was us, her friends,” she said.

Ms Varley said Ms Fitzgerald told her she had been researching autopsy reports on how many tablets were needed to complete a suicide. She also said there was nowhere in her house to hang herself.

Mr Bruen, a close friend and former boyfriend of Ms Fitzgerald, said the last overdose he was aware of occurred the month before she died, on the night of July 16th.

He said he received a phone call from her that evening and it was clear she was under the influence of drugs.

“She had a slurred speech and was drowsy. During the conversation she was really down in herself and I was trying to convince her to speak to a professional for help,” he told the inquest.

He and a friend called over to her house that night and the next day she admitted herself into St Patrick’s, a psychiatric hospital in Dublin, as a voluntary patient. She left a week later, against medical advice.

Another friend, Clare Brady, described how she and other friends had supported Ms Fitzgerald following another overdose earlier in the summer.

After seeking treatment at St James’s hospital after taking a combination of tablets and alcohol, Ms Fitzgerald was discharged on condition that she be kept under 24-hour supervision for a week.

Ms Brady, along with Ms Varley, Mr Bruen and another friend, Derek Lande, took it in turns to stay with her for the week, during which she spoke about her depression and feeling suicidal.

She said Ms Fitzgerald often stopped taking her medication as she felt it was interfering with her writing, which was important for her work.

Tony McLinn, a solicitor for Ms Fitzgerald’s parents, Tom and Sally, pointed to statements on a number of occasions from friends that she had appeared much happier in the weeks before her death and was hopeful of getting a new job.

Mood changes

Ms Varley said she seemed much happier, but was also prone to mood changes.

“Even at her most depressed she was such great fun to be around. She could be in brilliant form, and then an hour later be sad again,” she said.

The inquest also heard that Ms Fitzgerald wrote an anonymous article for The Irish Times on her efforts to deal with depression and workplace attitudes to mental health. The article appeared shortly after her death.

The newspaper’s then opinion editor, Peter Murtagh, said he was unaware that she had died until he received a phone call from her father.

Mr Murtagh told the court he had spoken with Ms Fitzgerald on August 22nd, the day before her body was found.

“She spoke calmly and with great lucidity and appeared, to my non-expert eye, to be entirely normal and balanced.”

The inquest has been adjourned and is expected to resume in late May.