The people of Enniscorthy are bewildered. Eithne Donnellan reports from a town trying to cope with tragedy
As another Wexford family today prepares to bury a young man taken from the River Slaney, the question on everyone's lips in the county is "Why?" Why have six young men entered the river within a few miles of each other over an eight-day period?
It's a question that so far remains unanswered as search teams, hampered by atrocious weather, continue to comb the river for three of the men who are still missing.
Four of the men entered the river at Enniscorthy. They were aged 27 to 39, and two of them were fathers to a total of seven children. One of them, a single man who was buried on Monday, had lost his sister in a road traffic accident just over a year ago. Another, a foreign national, was rescued and is recovering in hospital.
A fifth, who was aged 21 and single, entered the river at Bunclody on Sunday night and was found within hours. He will be buried today, just weeks after his best friend took his own life.
And in the most recent incident, which was reported to gardaí in Wexford only late on Monday night, a 23-year-old man is understood to have fallen off a bridge in the town shortly before midnight on Sunday. Earlier reports had suggested this victim was female.
The Garda sergeant in Enniscorthy, Mick Morrissey, said all the incidents were totally unconnected. "It's incredible," he said. "The local people don't know how to fathom what's going on. There is a dark cloud over Enniscorthy at the moment. People must be wondering what sort of place Enniscorthy is to have all this going on."
The town, with a population of about 10,000, has never seen anything quite like this before. There have been occasional drownings in the river, but never anything on this scale.
The Slaney River Rescue Service, which is co-ordinating the search for the three men still missing, said there had been 24 deaths in the Enniscorthy-to-Wexford stretch of the river over 27 years. Now they are dealing with five in little over a week.
Its chairman, Mr Harry O'Connor, said the search team were tired and weary. "We are just not trained to handle this kind of thing. In 25 years on the river I've never experienced anything like this. Once we had two people missing at the same time, but now we've just had six in a week. Our people are beginning to get fatigued," he said.
The rescue service, which is entirely voluntary, searched the river through daylight hours all last week, after the first man, a father of two, entered the river on Monday at 9 a.m. after dropping his children to school.
On Friday night another man entered the water off a bridge in Enniscorthy. "We got no sleep Friday night. On Saturday we thought 6 o'clock would never come so we could rest, and then two men went into the river that night, so again we got no sleep. And again on Sunday night another man went into the water at Bunclody, and we were called out again," Mr O'Connor said.
Yesterday their search, backed up by Garda sub-aqua divers, boats and civilians, was hampered by poor weather. "Conditions are terrible and they are forecast to get worse. The river is swollen and the water is coloured with flooding coming down from Wicklow. Poor visibility under water is hampering the divers colossally," Mr O'Connor said.
He appealed to anyone with spare lifejackets to lend them to those searching the banks of the river.
All day yesterday a steady stream of people arrived at the boathouse in Enniscorthy with donations of food for those involved in the search. People are rallying around to do whatever they can to help.
Two cousins of the first man to go missing stood watch in their raingear on the banks of the river hoping his body might be washed up. "This is the eighth day since he went missing, so his body should float today if it's not caught somewhere," they said.
Why five lives had been lost in the area in one week, they said, baffled everyone. "It's very hard to comprehend. It's just a complete mystery. Nobody seems to have any idea."
Sgt Morrissey said gardaí had started patrolling the two bridges in Enniscorthy over the last few nights in an attempt to prevent copycat incidents. "But you can't patrol a whole river," he said.
The South Eastern Health Board's suicide resource officer, Mr Sean McCarthy, said a major problem for health services across the country was getting young men with any kind of health problem to access services. "It's something we are attempting to address," he said.
He added that there was no simple answer when people asked why so many young men were ending their lives. "It would be unusual for just one event to cause a person to take their life. It could be a build-up of things. You have to look at medical, sociological and biochemical reasons. It's a very complex area," he said.
So what advice can he offer at this time? "Be aware of others. If you are a parent be aware of your kids and how they are. If you work with somebody who had been a bit down, be there for them. Encourage them to attend their GP. Don't leave somebody on their own if they are down, particularly at this time," he said.
The administrator of the Diocese of Ferns, Bishop Eamonn Walsh, urged people who might be in difficulty or distressed to seek help from others.
"This is a time of immense sadness and pain for all involved in recent tragedies here in the Diocese of Ferns, most especially for the families and friends of those who have died or who are still missing. Such sadness and pain is shared by people from all sections of both the local and diocesan communities," he said.
"I ask for prayers at all weekday and Sunday Masses for those who have died, who are bereaved or who are affected by the sad events of these past days," he added.
The health board has set up a freephone helpline for people in the area traumatised by recent events. Its number is 1800 455 120 and it is open daily from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. A drop-in counselling service is also being provided from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. daily at Enniscorthy Health Centre.
Mr Fintan Dunne of Men's Aid in Bunclody said it was too little too late. He had set up a helpline for suicidal young men three years ago, but it had had to close after a year because it received no State funding.
He attributes the increasing suicide rate to several factors. "We have had a diminution of community. We are also suffering from a catastrophic health system which is not delivering results. The suicide rate is obvious evidence of its failure," he said.
An Enniscorthy shopkeeper, Mr Joe Berney, said it was no coincidence that many men were going missing after pub closing time. "It's not a new phenomenon to have people jumping into that river. What is new is to have such a concentrated number in such a short space of time, and it begs the question of how much alcohol has to do with it".
Mr Dunne called for the money spent on advertising alcohol to be redirected into suicide prevention programmes. He also called on the Government to sign up to World Health Organisation targets for suicide prevention.