People of 2016: ‘Nice changed my life, in a positive way’

Eoin Staunton (22) from Tourmakeady, Co Mayo, was just an ordinary young Irishman, waiting tables at Ma Nolan’s pub in Nice last summer, after finishing his degree in Irish and geography.

Staunton went to a Bastille Day party near the airport with his French girlfriend Lydia, five Irish friends and two young women from Slovenia and Venezuela. They took the bus back to town and were walking down the Promenade des Anglais when they heard screams and turned to see a large refrigerated lorry crashing through the crowd.

When I met Staunton at Ma Nolan’s the following morning, he hadn’t slept and was still in shock. His account closely resembled that of Berliners caught in a similar rampage on December 19th: the horror of seeing people fall under the wheels, the panic and rapidity with which it happened; the sight of scattered bodies.

On the night of the attack, Staunton’s first concern was to find Lydia and the rest of his group. While they were hiding in the Neptune restaurant on the beachfront they telephoned close relatives, who had already learned of the attack and were worried.

Staunton attributes his resilience to mutual support within the group of eight friends. “We all stayed together in the same house. The first two or three days were really hard. Everyone was there for each other. Some people took it worse.”

Counselling

The day after the attack, one of the Irishmen heard that the British consulate was offering counselling. Staunton went with two friends. “It was just good to talk. They said we shouldn’t have to feel bad for the people that died. They said just think about how lucky you are.” He was afraid he would have nightmares of the attack, but that hasn’t happened.

Staunton was touched by the number of people who contacted him to learn if he was okay. The experience brought him closer to Lydia, and she came to Ireland with him at the end of July. “Any time we want to talk about it, we have each other. I don’t feel the need to tell other people about what happened,” he says.

He worked in a shop in Galway through the Christmas season, while Lydia found a job in a tea room.

Staunton doesn’t concern himself with what he calls “the big questions” of Islam in Europe, Islamic State and the war in Syria. “The thing in Nice . . . we forget it wasn’t anything to do with Isis,” he says. “The man was just mentally unwell . . . In Ireland, you feel really safe. There’s no fear of it here.”

Yet despite the attack, Staunton misses Nice. “We had such a good time there. It was definitely a good summer. It didn’t destroy that.” He looks forward to the future.

Since returning to Ireland, Staunton has completed a course in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. He and Lydia would like to go abroad again, possibly to France. "The odds of it happening to me again are so low," he says. "You can't plan your life around it."

The Bastille Day atrocity “changed my life, in a positive way”, Staunton says. “You feel bad for the people that weren’t so lucky. At the same time, it kind of puts your life in perspective. It definitely makes you stronger. You realise how fragile life is. Just a few yards in the other direction and he would have got me.”