IT’S NOT ALWAYS easy to tell which images will leave a lump in our throats.
They can capture a whole community’s sadness, the lifelong love of two women, or a single family’s agony.
It’s thousands of people in silent reflection, remembering a 25-year-old tragedy.
But it’s also the dignity of a father mourning the unimaginable death of his infant son.
It’s the age-old ritual of a little girl on her first day of school, but it’s also a community’s desperate plea for a beloved granddad to come home.
Here are just 21 of the images that brought a tear to our eyes in 2014:
15 January: Friends assembled at St Theresa’s church in Dublin city to share their grief and remembrances of Tom O’ Gorman, who was brutally killed at his home in Castleknock.
8 March: Brian O’Driscoll, with his daughter Sadie, says goodbye after his last home match for Ireland at the Aviva Stadium, a 46-7 win against Italy.
13 April: Two days before the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, Anfield observes an emotional minute’s silence in memory of the 96 people who lost their lives.
14 April: More than 200 schoolgirls are kidnapped by the Boko Haram terrorist group, sparking the global “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign. Eight months later, only a handful have returned home.
In this image, Martha Mark cries as she holds a photo of her kidnapped daughter Monica.
12 June: Six-year-old Jake Brennan was knocked down and killed outside his own home in Kilkenny. His mother Roseann channelled her heartbreak into a campaign to lower speed limits in housing estates.
20 June: 13-year-old Ricky Osagie drowned in water near his house in Blanchardstown, after coming to the aid of two girls who got into difficulty there. He was hailed as a hero.
19 July: This horrifying photo of two-year-old Nema Abu al-Foul, the victim of an Israeli missile strike, brought home the human toll of the near two-month conflict in Gaza.
29 July: 81-year-old Tom Kennedy went missing from his home in Finglas, north Dublin, sparking an extraordinary and determined search from family, friends, neighbours, and strangers who had taken him into their hearts.
Five months later, that search continues.
5 August: The World Health Organisation says more than 6,000 people have died in a West African Ebola epidemic that started in December 2013.
In this shocking photo, a victim of the disease lies dead and untouched on the streets of Monrovia in Liberia.
12 August: We woke to the news that beloved American actor Robin Williams had been found dead at his home, after taking his own life.
There followed a worldwide outpouring of grief, exemplified by this father and son placing flowers at the “Mork and Mindy” house in Boulder, Colorado.
20 August: Diane and John Foley are overcome with emotion at a press conference outside their home in Rochester, New Hampshire.
Their son, photojournalist James Foley, had been brutally executed by the Islamic State group in Syria days earlier.
28 August: On her very first day at Gardiner Street school, Kyra Duncan reminded us all just how hard growing up can be sometimes.
31 August: Dublin footballer Alan Brogan with his son Jamie, after the team’s defeat to Donegal in the All-Ireland semi-final.
6 September: 91-year-old Vivian Boyack and 90-year-old Alice Nonie Dubes got married in Davenport, Iowa, after 72 years together.
6 October: 29-year-old Brittany Maynard recorded an extraordinary, and heart-breaking video, explaining why and how she was planning her own death, after a fight against a rare form of brain cancer.
This is the bedroom where she died, surrounded by her loved ones, on 1 November.
16 October: The country reacted in horror and disbelief when two-year-old Hassan Khan was found dead in an apartment in Ballybrack, South Dublin.
His mother was later charged over his death.
Here, Hassan’s father Saleem Khan is seen praying at his son’s funeral in Clonskeagh, surrounded by mourners.
21 October: Four-year-old Gavin Glynn captured the love and support of the whole country this year, after his family launched the #MyBoy campaign to help raise funds for his cancer treatment in the US.
Sadly, Gavin passed away on 21 October.
23 October: Mourners in London pay tribute to 14-year-old Alice Gross, whose body was found on 1 October, after she went missing in August, sparking what the Metropolitan Police called their largest operation since the July 7 bombings in 2005.
12 November: A heart-wrenching video of Chris Picco singing to his newborn son Lennon went viral throughout the world in November.
Picco’s wife Ashley had died after giving birth to their son in an emergency C-Section.
Tragically, Lennon passed away himself, just four days later.
21 November: 85-year-old Carmen Martinez Ayudo was evicted from her Madrid home, where she had lived for 50 years.
Photographers captured the devastating scenes.
27 November: The family of 38-year-old Cystic Fibrosis sufferer Helen Taylor spoke to TheJournal.ie about her fight for a double lung transplant, as her condition worsened following a chest infection.
Her son Luke’s Christmas wish that “his Mammy gets new lungs.”
Sadly, Helen died on 27 November.
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