There is little sign of Christmas in the houses near where 15-month-old Millie Martin met a violent end, the latest incident to prompt questions locally about child protection
THE CHANGE from family home to cordoned-off scene is sudden and shocking. Last Friday, at the home of 15-months-old Millie Martin, there was a "Santa stop here" sign in the window.
Today that window and the doors of 16 Glebe Park are secured by brown metal covers. Police tape suspended across the small front garden of the semi-detached house warns off those who have arrived to spend a quiet moment in silent remembrance of the little girl who lived here before her death last week.
It is a typical house in a relatively modern development on the northern fringes of Fermanagh's county town. It could be any market town in any county but for the odd tattered and limp union flag, which means it could only be Northern Ireland.
An outside light still burns and the new edition of Yellow Pages lies uncollected in its plastic bag beside the doorstep. Inside, two forensics officers in boiler suits and face masks can be seen picking through the rooms. Bunches of flowers and small soft toys form a line on the tiny front garden, beyond which the neighbours and sympathisers cannot go. The messages tagged to their gifts point to the stunned sense of outrage and tragedy that hangs over the place. Some of the posies still have the price sticker.
The atmosphere is abnormally quiet, apart from two young boys, who gabble about "what happened to the wee baby".
Among the anonymous tributes and expressions of grief is a forlorn admission: "We didn't know you." Another recounts an old bedtime prayer: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep." Yet another draws some comfort from the belief that Millie is now "safe in the arms of Jesus".
"Another angel for God," says one. "Rest in peace wee pet." It is signed No 25.
The people at 25, just across the road, don't want to come to the door or talk to any more reporters. It's a common attitude now that the TV satellite vans and the roving microphones have gone. The young woman at No 65 tells The Irish Timesthat the past few days have all been a bit much, though she speaks in understatements about the media interest. "Well, there have been a few of you about," she says. The tone is quiet and polite, while amplifying a feeling now that enough is enough.
Little appears to be known about Millie Martin, her mother Rachel and her partner - the man charged with the child's murder.
"I don't think they have been here very long," says the neighbour. She might have known them better if they had been around for a while. Nothing is offered about the child's father, or about the man who had appeared in an Omagh courtroom to face a murder charge. His name, Barry Michael McCarney, now echoes on every hourly news bulletin.
There is no Christmas tree in the window of this house. "It's in the boot of the car. And it will probably stay there," she says.
It is not a time for celebrating anything around here. Within respectful distances of No 16 there are no flashing lights or trees.
A CAR PULLSup and a woman steps out to place yet more flowers on the others that have already started to decay since last Friday. The soft toys, now damp and bedraggled, add to the palpable sense of something being very wrong.
She doesn't want to talk either.
Recent times have been rough in Fermanagh. Lough Erne is at an all-time high and floodwaters are still receding from country roads and submerged farms.
Two weeks ago, on the other side of town, an elderly man took his own life and was found in the lough near his home. His wife, who had Alzheimer's, was found suffocated in her bed. A note left at the house suggested they had both lived too long.
Local police are still investigating the murder attempt by dissident republicans on a young student police officer not far away in the Border town of Garrison.
It's been a busy month for the Impartial Reporter,a well-known Fermanagh weekly. Rodney Edwards, one of its reporters, was given the Martin family statement to circulate among the national media.
It spoke of their "unbearable grief", and contained an appeal for privacy at this "distressing" time. The full scale of the tragedy was bluntly expressed in an interview Rachel Martin and her mother, Margaret, gave Edwards, which was published in Thursday's paper.
"I nipped down to the shop, it was only down the road, just for a few messages. It was literally minutes away and back up to nobody in the house," she said. "The house was empty and I lifted up my phone to see a missed call. I was told to get to the hospital quick - I was in hysterics," she added.
She explained what had happened at the hospital. "The doctors kept doing tests and tests. We hoped so much that she'd wake up. They tried to see if there was any life left in her but there wasn't. They let me nurse her before they turned off the machine and after they switched it off too, I kissed and cuddled her, holding her in my arms.
"She was my perfect princess with a lovely smile and beautiful big eyes, and she should still be here."
Adding to the family's hurt is the controversy about the emergence of a picture of the dead child. According to Edwards, the Martins had not released a photograph to the media. The image, which is now commonplace, was allegedly provided by someone else and taken from a social networking site. The bereaved cannot accept that images of a suspect can be so little published - McCarney's only appeared in the media in the past few days - while the child's face is available everywhere.
As the shock of Millie's murder slowly diminishes, the pointed questioning has begun. It emerged in the days immediately after her death that the child's mother and the local social services had been in touch. The Western Health and Social Services Trust, which delivers services in Fermanagh, is also responsible for the Omagh area, where the five McGovern-McElhill children and their mother died in a devastating house fire started by their father, Arthur, two years ago.
The inquest into their deaths reported its findings last week, after four days of hearings that detailed Arthur McElhill's record as a sex offender and his battles with depression.
There is now growing popular concern that young children such as the McElhill children are not adequately protected from potentially dangerous adults because of problems assessing the true levels of risk.
Stormont Health Minister Michael McGimpsey's department, no doubt sensing public anxiety, last week detailed the ballooning demand for social work care, and allocated an extra £20 million (almost €22.5 million) to such services.
Child protection also figured in the joint communiqué issued by the Stormont Executive and the Irish Government in Co Derry earlier this week, when they discussed the issue under the auspices of the North South Ministerial Council.
Pressure for an inquiry is also coming from a committee of Assembly members. Health committee chairman Jim Wells says the Millie Martin case ought to be investigated. "I think we can't wait until any possible court case is completed in order to learn the lessons of any mistakes that have been made in Enniskillen," he said.
"Therefore I think an inquiry should be launched immediately by the Western Health and Social Care Trust." In the meantime, Enniskillen faces Christmas in the shadow of its latest tragedy.
