Charleville tragedy: Mother speaks of her love for all her sons

A mother who lost three sons in a murder-suicide in North Cork earlier this month has spoken of her sadness at the tragedy.

Helen O’ Driscoll said she will always love her eldest son whom gardaí believe was responsible for the tragedy.

Ms O’Driscoll spoke of how she learned her eldest son Jonathan (21), had taken his own life following the fatal stabbings of her twin sons, Patrick and Thomas O’Driscoll (9), at their family home at Deerpark in Charleville on September 4th.

The bodies of the two twins were found by their younger siblings, Jimmy (5), and Martin (3), at around 5pm and just over an hour later, the body of Jonathan was found in woodland in Buttevant some 15km away.

Ms O'Driscoll and her husband Thomas Snr had been in Waterford on the day in question buying a miniature traditional barrel Traveller caravan for the twins when they received a call from a relative advising them to return home as a matter of urgency.

"I just asked Jesus and Our Blessed Lady, I said 'Please, don't let it be true.' I just kept praying," she told UTV in an exclusive interview with the television channel broadcast tonight.

“When I got up home there were so many cars and gardaí. A lovely young garda came up to me and all he said to me was ‘Helen, your boys are gone…but the doctors are in there with them trying to help’.

“I know people will say ‘What was wrong with her?’ But I went looking for my John. I wanted my John…my pride and joy…my rock. He was the bone of our family. I will never hate him,” she added.

Ms O’Driscoll acknowledged that there had hostility towards Jonathan within the Traveller community following the killings but she said that she could never hate her son whom she first fostered and later adopted while still an infant.

“ As I have said 101 times, I am his mother. I forgive him. I couldn’t give a hoot what the whole world would say about my son because I knew him as the boy I reared,” she said.

The O’Driscoll family held a requiem mass for all three boys at Holycross Church on September 7th with the twins being buried in the O’Driscoll family plot in Charleville and Jonathan being buried later with Ms O’Driscoll’s parents in Kilmallock.

At the Requiem Mass, Helen’s oldest daughter, Bernadette spoke of how the family had been shattered and devastated by the tragedy and how they would always miss the three boys who were very close.

"To my three brothers, Jonathan, Paddy and Tom Tom, your memories of laughter that we shared together as a family growing up together I will treasure for the rest of my life," she told mourners

“I will always love you and I will always miss you. Forever, our family hearts are broken. From our hearts, we say a fond farewell to the three of you. God will be waiting at the Gates of Heaven to take you in.”