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MY COUSIN Glen McNally’s body was found in the canal this week but he should not be dead. He should not have been allowed to leave the Mater Hospital one day after trying to kill himself. He was deemed fit by the doctors, he didn’t abscond or discharge himself against advice. He was given a clean bill of health, walked out the hospital doors and took his own life.
I was with Glen on the day he tried to take his own life in my nanny Marie’s house. Before the ambulance came, Glen changed his mind about wanting to die and instead talked about going back to the gym and sorting himself out. I thought with the right help he would stay talking this way. He was taken to the Mater Hospital, on the way in the ambulance he kept asking to be brought to St James’s Hospital where he was treated before for suicidal behaviour.
Instead they took him to the Mater. He had taken a whole week’s supply of my nannies anti-depressants; he cut his wrist and tried to hang himself. He slept in a wheelchair in A&E which felt like hours while he continually fell forward while no one took care of him. It was horrible to see. He eventually went to the ICU unit. By then he was asleep, and I never spoke to him or saw him again.
Then the next day the doctors sent him home; he walked out of the hospital and killed himself. He left alone and was in so much pain and despair that the only answer he believed would end his pain was to end it all. He didn’t know what he was doing and it feels like nobody cares. Even when he went missing, I know the gardaí were out looking for him, but they didn’t make a public appeal until a week after he died – why did this happen? And why did the hospital let him out? Why? If Glen was a Government Minister’s son it would be front page news. But it wasn’t.
Glen was a very good friend to all of us, we used to often stay in the back room in my nanny’s in Cappagh Avenue and have a laugh. He loved looking good, he wouldn’t allow you to take a photo of him unless he was looking his absolute best. He loved working out in the gym and being fit, he had the best taste in clothes too. He adored all of his family, his sisters and brother, his ma, his grandparents, cousins and friends. Family meant the world to him and being in my nanny’s house where his da grew up was special for him. He was just a normal 20 year old trying to find his way in the world. He was brilliant at poetry and he was intelligent and very deep too.
I’m just gone 17, and in that time I’ve been affected by suicide twice. Before I sit my Leaving Cert in June ill already have lost my mother Frances to suicide, my father and uncle were both shot dead, and my cousin and good friend Glen to suicide. I was too young to do anything for the others but I want to be heard now because Glen deserves it.
But like me, he never got over the death of his da Graham whom he adored. He wasn’t right after his death and then the same thing happened to my da in 2012. We loved our das and still do, we have a right to love them, yes they were no angels but nobody has ever been found guilty of killing our das and that is really really hard for us. Nobody thinks about the children of the people they are killing and the state it leaves us in. Glen wasn’t able to cope with losing his da and it didn’t help that no one was found guilty even though we all know who they are. We don’t want revenge, we just want to live a decent normal life.
I feel really sorry for Glen because he didn’t get the help he needed, but he was the sort of lad who would have helped anyone if they needed it. Why couldn’t the same have been done for him?
– Conor McNally
(Pictured left to right: Glen Murphy McNally, Dara McNally and Conor McNally as children)
Helplines:
Read: Body of missing 20-year-old Glen Murphy found
It has to come down at some point. The trends historically go up and down. Never permanently in one direction. All this talk of no recession, if one happens in the USA, there’s one here too. Economy is boiling over, costs of living are ridiculously high.
@Michael Mc Gee: GDP growth is just a relative measure compared to the previous year. We grew at over 10% in both 2021 & 2022, so it’s inevitable we will experience a “recession” unless we keep growing at those unsustainable rates. Just a technical recession.
@Michael Mc Gee: and a massive housing crisis to add to it all fueled by a tick government asleep at the wheel,get used to sofa surfing more is yet to come
Cost of living out of control in some sectors, price of fuel going up in a few days, the push to get people back to offices 5 days a week despite promised to make wfh or hybrid work which would help reduce costs on taxpayers and also take extra traffic off the roads, all going down where most of the promises of FFG go. The over reliance on FDI’s and the insanity of allowing this current government to giveaway surplus to win votes and then ride off into the sunset with their fat accounts and massive pensions for the next saps who get voted in, and laugh from the opposition benches when all their giveaways are having to be taken back cos they have helped cook this economy and drive the country closer to an actual full blown recession…..sure its all grand lads
@Tom Newell: I WFH full time since 2020. You just have to put your foot down – refuse long commutes, refuse to return to offices, quit your job. I did, twice, so that I could remain working from home. I live 1.5 hrs from my employers office, so returning to the office is never going to happen.
@MTB Mayo: If I was your employer I’d have sacked you.
@MTB Mayo: You are so lucky to be able to decide for yourself…if just a few become unemployed that could change. If you are based in Mayo thank your deity for the great turnaround in that lovely county. It’s really a short time ago when there was nothing in it except it’s beauty…then along came a certain James Horan and his band of volunteers.
@MTB Mayo: Great advice.
@Tom Newell: Over reliance of FDI? Ireland has few natural resources & is therefore reliant on an active workforce. No government policy can change this, unless we return to the 70s/80s when many people had nothing.
Investment is needed in order to make a workforce productive. As a (relatively) small economy, there is a need for international companies to bring this productivity.
Wouldn’t want to work for you anyway
@: I doubt you’d have the cop on to run a business
What happened in 2015 when the Irish economy “grew” by 25% was simply that Apple transferred all iPhone-related IP to Ireland. There was absolutely no increase in delivering products or services. Leprechaun economics indeed!
@Corey Dalton: Such is the opaque nature of these tax-related shenanigans that this fact did not become clear until a few years later.
@Corey Dalton: Gross = made up
We need a good recession to drive down the cost of everything. Completely gone out of hand.
@Lonely Are the Brave.: That would be great, except deflation is even worse than inflation. If people knew that the price of, let’s say building materials was going to get cheaper every month, sure then why bother doing anything, just sit tight, don’t spend anything and wait until the price hits the right level. That is how economic depressions start.
The lies are getting smaller
Funny how all this govt income is going down just before budget day
We all partied…
@brian o’leary: not that kind of recession
The government are laughing at us, with major international distractions and the egregious left agenda. Martin & side kick are screaming about the UN while our own victims are being trampled upon. Now they’re giving poor folk a Christmas present hoping it will shut them up while the economy is shrinking even though the multinationals are paying the wages for a majority in services and related economy and employment. The games are about to begin for Leprechaun economics and it’s not going to be pretty. We voted them in. We’ll pay the price because the fundamentals were ever only about one thing. Them.
It used to be called a recession.
If there was honest reporting of the state of the economy in the first place there’d be a much clearer picture, the manipulation of figures to create a positive image fools nobody involved in International Economics, we’re a laughing stock in the EU for the manner of unreliable and inaccurate economic reports issued by the government
The fundamentals are sound
I’m sure it’ll be a “soft landing”.
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