A JOURNALIST told an inquest yesterday of how she tried to stop a poet, Patrick Tierney, who was an AIDS sufferer, from hanging himself on his 39th birthday in a churchyard.
Ms Brenda Power told the Dublin Coroner's Court that Mr Tierney had phoned the Sunday Tribune on December 28th-29th, 1995, and said he wanted to commit suicide and to speak to a journalist on why he was going to do it.
Ms Power met him at Ballymun shopping centre on January 2nd, where he explained his frustration at living in Ballymun and told her about being brought up in an orphanage and foster homes.
He said he had had a hard life and had contracted AIDS while working in the United States. He was going to take the decision in his own hands and planned to kill himself on January 4th, his 39th birthday.
Ms Power said: "He seemed to be 100 per cent certain of where he was going to die. He said he was going to hang himself in the grounds of a religious institute in either Dublin or Galway. It would be a full moon, and that had some significance for him.
"I tried to dissuade him, on meeting him the following day, from committing suicide. But he said he had no hope, no future, no family and no girlfriend. There was no chance of him having kids either. He said he was tired of giving, and it was time to think about himself."
Ms Power said she got no impression that he wanted her to stop him and she left him personally very disturbed at about 1.30 p.m. on January 3rd. She told him to call in to see her, but he said it was very unlikely he would be still around.
She spoke to her editor, who took advice on the matter.
Mrs Michelle Mahon said she was the registered next of kin of the poet. He had been very depressed and was drinking for two weeks after coming back from England, where his mother had refused to speak to him and had refused to tell him the identity of his father. Before his death, Mrs Mahon said, he paid everybody to whom he owed money in Ballymun and told them that he was an AIDS victim and had been abused by the Christian Brothers at a home in Galway.
His body was found by Mr Dermot O'Donoghue, of Delgany, Co Wicklow, in the grounds of the Corpus Christi Church, Griffith Avenue, Dublin, at about 8.30 a.m. on January 5th. He alerted Whitehall gardai about the body hanging from a tree.
Sgt Terence Allen said that a number of prepared notes were found in the dead man's pockets.
Dr James Kirrane, pathologist, said that a moderate level of alcohol was found in the urine and the body was positive for a small level of cannabis.
Returning a verdict of suicide, Dr Brian Farrell, the Dublin City Coroner, said it was clear that the deceased wished to make a public statement before his death by contacting a journalist about his deeply felt suffering and depression.
The coroner added: "It is clear from his notes and his contact with his many friends that he intended to take his own life. He had a medical prognosis before his suicide that he had one to two years to live. He was very depressed and wished to state publicly what he was doing."