Mum takes on five-day walk in memory of son

Mum takes on five-day walk in memory of son

17 July 2019

A MOTHER who lost her son to suicide is to lead a five-day walk through Downpatrick and the Mournes to help try and save the lives of other young people.

Nichola O’Connor, with volunteers and a group of young men and women over the age of 18, will arrive in Downpatrick tonight after walking over 20 miles from Belfast today.

Her third son, Eamon, took his life in June last year at the age of 18.

Eamon was a promising young footballer whose death sent shockwaves through a community already reeling from one too many suicide.

It’s a sorrow that some local parents and people also know well as Newry, Mourne and Down Council area has the highest suicide rate outside Belfast.

Since then Mrs O’Connor has channelled her grief over his immeasurable loss to create a community organisation, serving Ballymurphy in west Belfast where she lives with her family, to tackle the problems of drugs and depression which often lead to suicide.

“There has not been another suicide in Ballymurphy since Eamon’s death and I’m proud to say that through his death he has saved so many lives,” the mother of four sons told the Recorder.

“After Eamon’s death, we carried out research to find out what was needed in our own parish. We took a community that was broken from so many suicides and transformed our it. Now have our own food bank, clothes bank and a -in centre and an emergency number,” she explained.

“What we are telling these young people is to walk themselves to well-being. The walk is designed to represent the ups and downs and life. When you are down, you want to give up and don’t want to go further, but we are going to ask them to climb these mountains. We hope to build within them coping mechanisms that they can take with them throughout life. 

“They will be given care packs and letters from home on Friday night from their parents and loved ones who know what they have just gone through and will give them praise, love and encouragement. The bigger message that we want to get out there if that if we all stick together we can break the stigma of suicide.”

The walk will go over Slieve Donard and two other peaks in the Mournes, down to Attical, across to Carlingford and culminating with Mass at St Jude’s Shrine at 3pm on Sunday.

Organised by Dawg— the new community organisation named after Eamon’s habit of welcoming everyone he met with the greeting ‘Dawg’ — the walk is designed to be a physical and emotional challenge for the young people to undertake and complete.

Each of the 18-strong group of young walkers have recently experienced their own problems dealing with depression, sometimes combined with drugs for many of them.

Fr John Murray, parish priest of Downpatrick, will be hosting the group at St Michael’s Parochial Centre. It leaves Corpus Christi in Ballymurphy where former Crossgar parish priest Fr Paddy McCafferty is the PP. 

Fr Murray said he was fully supportive of the walk. “I think that anything that can be done in the community to help young people deal with depression and mental health issues is to be commended and encouraged.”

Mrs O’Connor credits her strong Catholic faith and her work with Dawg in helping her deal with Eamon’s death. 

She said: “It may sound hard from a mother who’s in grief, but I know his death has saved and transformed so many lives. So many parents have came to us to ask us to talk and work with their children.”

Mrs O’Connor has said Dawg would welcome any donations made along the way to help fund their mental health and suicide prevention work. 

She also invited any other families and friends who have lost someone to suicide to come along to the Sunday mass celebrated by Fr McCafferty.