Expression of Sympathy by An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny

I know I can speak for all in this House when I express deep shock and sadness at the deaths over the last weekend in separate but equally tragic events- ten family members at Carrickmines, Co Dublin at the weekend, and the murder of a member of An Garda Síochána in Omeath Co Louth.  

Thomas and Sylvia Connors and their children Jim, Christy, and baby Mary;  

Willie Lynch and Tara Gilbert and their daughters Kelsey and Jodie; 

Jimmy Lynch (Willie’s brother);  

And Garda Tony Golden.  

To us they have become the names of the dead. 

But for those who knew them and love them and mourn them, they are the still the possessors of a life, lived and unlived, of hopes and dreams, with all their joys, sorrows, innocence, and expectation.  

The birthdays uncelebrated, the children unborn, all the milestones of what we call a life, that will never now be reached.   

I visited the scene of the inferno at Carrickmines on Sunday. The location of where so many adults and children lost their lives to corrosive smoke and intense heat will forever remain with me. The silence and the sadness of the people in attendance demonstrated their solidarity with the families and children, as the Garda Technical personnel went about their work amidst the carnage evident on the site. 

To the Lynch and Connors family, I wish to extend our prayers and deepest sympathies on their tragic loss. My thoughts are also with the two children, now so sadly orphaned and who are still in hospital under treatment for their injuries. 

And just as Irish people felt a justified pride at our international achievements abroad, so once more our country held its breath as news of another Garda murdered in the line of duty became known. 

Garda Tony Golden, from Culleens, just outside Ballina, a community Garda with a passion for public service was cruelly taken from this life while carrying out his public duty. 

That passion and public duty that will forever counter the capacity for casual destruction.  

Tony Golden was a proud member of Na Stiofanaigh –the Ballina Stephenites.  He lived their rallying cry of ‘forward to the goal of victory.’  

He will be so sadly missed by his beloved family and especially by Nicola and their three beautiful children to whim we extend our deepest and heartfelt sympathy, and to his heartbroken colleagues in An Garda Siochana and the community with whom he serviced so generously. 

I am reminded of the poet’s words just across the water from Ballina – ‘And pluck til time and times are done –the silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun.’

 For both the Golden family and the extended Connors and Lynch families, it will be difficult, it might now seem impossible, for those who remain to find their co-ordinates of sense and survival for the dark weeks and months and years ahead.  

Their lives within those precious, short lives, that will be forever cherished by those they leave behind. 

An dheis De go raibh a N’anam nacha Dilis. 

The Tricolour, symbol of our country will fly at half mast on all public buildings on the occasion of the funerals.