This is a quiet story, almost silent. It did not happen during a war, or as part of some natural disaster, or group death. Mr Hanrahan died, as far as we know, alone, writes Ann Marie Hourihane.
EVEN AFTER the weekend we have just had , even in this culture of rolling news in which we can be bombarded by outrage every minute of every day, the story of the death of Denis Hanrahan, a senior officer of the GAA in Waterford, is very sad. It seems that he took his own life, amidst questions about €143,000 in ticket money which could not be located.
A former GAA county board chairman described Mr Hanrahan in this newspaper as "the most honourable and most efficient and most loyal officer of the county board".
This is a quiet story, almost silent. It did not happen during a war, or as part of some natural disaster, or group death. Mr Hanrahan died, as far as we know, alone. Notwithstanding the feelings of Mr Hanrahan's family and neighbours it is a small story, as so many tragedies are. Put it this way, it is not every day that the internal workings of the GAA's county boards are reported in the national newspapers. This is the private, backroom world that ticks over without great fuss or media attention, run as it is on amateur loyalty and local passion.
So Mr Hanrahan's death, and the suffering he must have endured prior to it, are shocking even to those who did not know him.
We live in a retribution culture which loves blame and regards blame as a solution for bad management in general and human failings in particular. The newspapers, radio and television are filled with people who have been caught out, people we can give out about and dream of bringing to justice. In this country we particularly love blame, and can frequently be found bouncing round our living rooms while the news is on shouting "Off with their heads", at politicians, HSE executives and the people who run what used to be called semi-State bodies.
When on a retribution jag you don't stop to think about the sleepless nights, the stomach ulcers and the despair of the person who has suddenly been thrust into the public eye. In a world divided along the nursery lines of good guys who are always right and bad guys who are always wrong it doesn't do to start thinking about those good guys who have actually done something wrong, or incompetent, or stupid - in other words, who have failed.
Failure is no joke and public failure is very hard indeed. The second thought that Mr Hanrahan's death brings to mind is how fragile we all are when we are forcibly detached from our organisations, cast out from the groups in which we have spent so much of our lives. The GAA appears to have acted mercifully in the matter of the missing money, and there would have been an outcry if the organisation had done nothing when confronted with the fact of the missing funds. Reports suggest that the shortfall of cash was brought to its attention late last year, and that time was granted by the GAA in which the money could have been repaid. Then the Garda Síochána were called in. Mr Hanrahan resigned. Then he died.
David Kelly died too, by his own hand, in a rural area of England. He was a scientific expert at the British ministry of defence who had been exposed as the source of stories about the Iraq dossier in 2003. His suicide was a shock. No less a person than Alistair Campbell told the subsequent Hutton inquiry: "I just do not think it crossed anybody's mind that it might turn out the way it did." The thing was that Dr Kelly was indeed guilty of the offence of which he was accused. After he died the BBC, with his family's permission, confirmed that he had been the source for two BBC stories on the sexing up of the Iraq dossier. Alistair Campbell described Dr Kelly as "a very strong and resolute character who had been in many difficult circumstances". In other words, the last person you would expect to take his own life. Dr Kelly's widow seems to have known the truth of the matter when she told the Hutton inquiry that, in the days before his death, "I just thought he had a broken heart".
He had been humiliated. His standing in the job he loved had been undermined. And all Dr Kelly had done was talk to two reporters who later, he claimed, exaggerated what he had said to them. There are men who have killed themselves because of tax demands, because the banks were after them , because of ticket money - things that other people seem to survive without effort, while they die of shame.
Dr Kelly had a supportive wife, but he would not speak to her a great deal about his work. Mr Hanrahan's wife was dead. Both men must have felt that they had nowhere to turn. When we are sure that we are right, when we have the miscreant in our sights, when we are assembling the posse and it is galloping off towards the horizon, that is the time that we need to be very careful indeed.