With Almost Unbearable Poignancy After a Fortnight in Which Five Boys

Summary

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ON HER journey in to work, Ann Simpson often does a double take at the sight of a teenage boy cycling at the side of the road. 'If he's wearing the same clothes as Robert, I immediately think it's him,' she recalls.

Then comes the crushing reality that it's not her son Robert, nor will it ever be.

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Extract

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With Almost Unbearable Poignancy After a Fortnight in Which Five Boys

In a fortnight that has seen the sudden deaths of five youngsters that have shocked the country, Ann understands better than most the raw grief that their parents are going through.

'When I heard the news of those boys I felt so much for those poor parents,' says Ann, 57, from Glenageary in south Dublin. 'Even though it's two and a half years since Robert died, sometimes it's as raw as if it were yesterday.

'I know what suffering lies ahead.' With Ann's grief, too, comes a deep sense of regret that Robert's life, like those of Patrick Devlin, 13, Patrick Breen, 10, Zeeshan Muhammed, 16, Tony Parker, 16, and 23-year-old John Paul Fitzgerald, could so easily have bee...

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