ORGANISERS OF A ST PATRICK’S DAY PARADE in Kilfenora have received strong criticism for allowing a float which appeared to mock the death of a Carlow pensioner earlier this year.
Peadar Doyle’s (66) death in January of this year garnered international headlines when it emerged his corpse was carried into a Carlow post office by his nephew Declan Haughney (40) while trying to withdraw his pension.
Haughney has since admitted the pensioner may have died in transit as his body ‘went a bit slumpy’ while the trio were en route to the Post Office. He later appeared in court charged with a number of offences, he is charged with deception, whereby he is alleged to have attempted to withdraw the pension of his deceased uncle on two occasions on January 21. He was granted bail, on a number of conditions.
A postmortem has determined there was no foul play in Mr Doyle’s death but was only able to estimate the time of death as some time on that Friday morning.
Parodies relating to Peadar’s death featured in St Patrick’s Day parades in Kerry, Donegal, Mayo and also in Kilfenora.
Fr Tom Little who said Peadar’s funeral mass said respect for the dead was lacking in both instances. “Peader should be allowed the dignity of who he was. He was a very decent man. He was a family man and he certainly shouldn’t have made, how would I describe it, a matter for parody. It was terrible and he has family, you know. His sister is alive and they are grieving. It’s a lack of respect for the dead – it is, absolutely. It’s a bad reflection on them (the people behind the floats) really”.
Following his death, Doyle’s family issued a statement to The Carlow Nationalist where they expressed their desire to help “give Peadar his dignity back”. They described him as “a rare and kind-hearted soul, who doesn’t deserve to be spoken about in such horrific terms, we would ask that our family be shown the courtesy and privacy at this sad time and we hope and we pray we have the support of our community.”
Such a simple request was blatantly ignored by certain floats for various St Patrick’s Day parades. In Kilfenora, the float was made up of a makeshift post office, a clerk and desk with two men propping up a third male while a van pulled the float along with the slogan ‘no pulse no pension’.
Organiser of the Kilfenora St Patrick’s Day Parade, Orla Vaughan declined to speak with The Clare Echo when contacted on Tuesday.
She did however appear on Clare FM’s Morning Focus where she has been a regular contributor over the past decade to the Friday panel segment. She issued an apology on air to Peadar’s family and confirmed that a letter expressing their sentiments was posted on Monday, four days after the parade. “I can understand, retrospectively which is never a good thing, the hurt that it has caused them over the last few days and to bring back what is very difficult times for them after the death of their brother and brother in law, is terrible”.
A decision to contact the Doyle family was reached in light of rising online criticism of the persons involved, this began on Friday but after the matter was discussed on Newstalk’s Lunchtime Live, “all hell broke loose and it seems to have gathered moss,” Orla noted.
As a co-organiser of the parade, she acknowledged that the float was “tone-deaf”. Ms Vaughan added, “We shouldn’t have done it, but that is no good for them, I have apologised in writing, I would love to speak directly because I don’t know who is driving this online campaign, I don’t know the people but I know there is a family behind this still grieving the death of their relation and what followed”.
Floats and persons on them are not vetted for the Kilfenora parade, she confirmed. “We’re 25 years doing the parade, we are a very small village, we’re in a competition with a lot of large towns around, the criteria is please turn up with a float, there is no vetting of floats or looking at floats before they take off in a parade”.
This approach is likely to change, she admitted. “I think moving forward we will definitely have to look into that, this has caused a lot of hurt to Peadar’s family and I can’t imagine what Noeleen is going through, we’ll definitely have to look into that. There has been no criteria for the Kilfenora parade, it is very much a parade that acts off what has happened in the news over twelve months and stuff like that, it’s unfortunate”.
Retired councillor in Carlow, Oliver Lacey (IND) told Newstalk that the floats “made a complete mockery of Peadar Doyle. They imitated the passing and they thought it was very funny”. He said the Kilfenora organisers did not respond to his efforts to make contact where he sought an apology for the family while noting that an online North Clare group “shut down” comments relating to the matter.
He stated, “It was so hurtful, so offensive and so thoughtless, it has generated a huge outcry in Carlow. It was very traumatic. The family are only coming to terms with his loss and the circumstances, the inclusion of these floats has brought it all back up. St Patrick’s Day is about celebrating Irishness and Irish life. Yes, there was lots of fun and floats, but to mock the death of a very decent man and the circumstances is just beggars belief. It’s just incomprehensible. The person in the middle was depicting a deceased person. I can’t find the words to describe it.
