A dilapidated house in a Dundalk suburb became a garden of remembrance yesterday as 400 people assembled to remember the 126 women who have died violently in Ireland in the past 10 years, writes Kathy Sheridanin Dundalk
Ice House, with its smashed front window and a few hyacinths struggling through the weeds at the front, lies empty now, the centre of a legal wrangle between Alan White and the family of his late wife, Irene, the mother of three whose stabbed body was left in her kitchen to be stumbled upon by her elderly mother, Maureen.
Anne Delcassian chose her sister's second anniversary to invite other grieving families to remember the mothers, wives, sisters and daughters lost through violence at a rate of one a month, and to demand justice for those, like Irene, whose killers remain at large.
Only one in three perpetrators have been brought to justice, it is estimated.
During an emotion-charged few hours, enveloped in the empathy of people similarly broken and bereaved, the families of Irene White, Sophie Toscan du Plantier, Rachel O'Reilly, Siobhán Kearney, Gráinne Dillon and others hugged, wept and talked quietly in the Good Friday sunshine.
Against a background of 126 St Brigid's crosses, each attached by a pink ribbon to names familiar or fading into memory, women such as Eileen Costello-O'Shaughnessy, Raonaid Murray, Paiche Onyemaechi, Meg Walsh and Baiba Saulite were remembered. Relatives laid flowers, including an arrangement "To Mam", from Irene White's children. Georges and Marguerite Bouniol, and Marie Madeleine Opalka, the parents and aunt of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, whose murder remains unsolved after 10 years, were among the first to arrive. The card accompanying their flowers, addressed to Sophie in her native language, encapsulated the grief and powerlessness of many who were there: "Our love will never waver but our hope, little by little, has become our despair."
With trembling hands and voice, Mr Bouniol pleaded for justice: "Today, we are again in Ireland, to share our grief, to witness, and once again, to demand justice."
Ms Opalka urged Irish legislators to alter the law to give families of murder victims better access to legal documents.
"As French citizens, we . . . underline our great dissatisfaction towards the Anglo-Saxon legal system as it is implemented here in Ireland."
Fr Martin Kenny, who was Irene White's school principal, spoke emotionally of her "infectious joy and happiness" and prayed for "closure and some comfort for all".