By Brendan O’Connor
Sunday Independent May 24 2009
The moment when things crystallise can be the moment you least expect. But somehow it was Miriam O’Callaghan, in her piece to camera at the beginning of Thursday night’s Prime Time, who perfectly, albeit accidentally, expressed the nation’s shock and grief.
She didn’t cry as she cited one simple example from the heavy volumes she held in her arms, but it was clear she was working hard not to. Amidst all the horrors we had read about and listened to, there was something heartbreakingly simple about a four-year-old boy whose crime was that his mama had died.
And somehow, as this mother of eight mentioned this small boy, whose crime led to him being delivered into a life of hell perpetrated by adults, and as she held back the tears herself, it seemed to form a moment of catharsis for the nation.
Many people had cried their eyes out already reading about the systematic endemic breaking and torture of innocent little children by an unholy alliance of Church, State and society. But as the camera moved in on O’Callaghan’s trembling voice and her misting eyes it seemed to release us all to submit to the true horror for a minute and to admit that this was, as she so simply put it, “too sad”.
No other broadcaster or politician or public figure was so appropriate over recent days.
While millions of words of remorse and sympathy were spoken, sometimes the cracks between the words are what matters. And O’Callaghan cracked and maybe through that crack the light shone in.
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