A SECOND-LEVEL schoolgirl who took her own life after receiving her Junior Cert results had read Nostradamus and told family and friends she believed the world was going to end when she was 15, an inquest heard yesterday.
The north Dublin student died of massive cranial trauma when she was struck by a train at Howth Junction station on September 12th, 2007, less than an hour after receiving her Junior Cert results.
An inquest into the teenager's death at Dublin County Coroner's Court yesterday heard that the young girl, who wanted to be a vet, had achieved an impressive four As and six Bs in her Junior Cert, but had set herself a minimum target of six As and four Bs.
After she had received her results that morning, she gave a trusted friend a silver envelope to give to her mother and left school by herself.
The teenager's mother later persuaded her friend to read out the note over the phone, after which she contacted the emergency services. "No one will understand why I did this. I'm not good enough to stay on this earth," the note read.
In a statement read out in court, her friend said the deceased always said she thought the world would end when she was 15.
The school friends had made arrangements to get their hair done in Portmarnock and go out to a disco, Barcode, in Clontarf that night to celebrate the results.
The teenager's father told the court his daughter, who he described as "very deep, very well-read, ambitious, open and loving", was up to date with all the "big issues of the day" and had read Nostradamus and had read the world was going to end in 2007.
"She had often said that . . . but we had engaged with her [ on the matter]. But like any other family, we weren't too concerned," he said.
"When she wrote it in the note, she said that the world would end in 2007, but then she said she didn't realise until that day that her world would end," he said.
He told the inquest his daughter had set herself a target of achieving six As and four Bs.
"She never expressed any suicidal thoughts. She was a loving child and she was very open with us in the house. We were no different from any other family in Ireland. She had a happy home. She had no reason to do what she did. There was nothing to suggest she had any particular problems."
A jury of seven men and two women returned a verdict of death by suicide.
The Dublin county coroner Dr Kieran Geraghty expressed his condolences to the girl's parents and siblings.
"It's quite clear she was an intelligent, ideological and caring young girl who, for some reason, came to believe her life depended on her results."