A WOMAN WHOSE husband and two sons died in a murder suicide in Kanturk, Co Cork last year has passed following a long battle with an undisclosed terminal illness.

Anne O’Sullivan, who was a former nurse, had to endure the loss of her sons Mark (26) and Diarmuid (23) and her husband 59-year-old Tadhg.

Ms O’ Sullivan (60) fled the family farmhouse on 26 October last when Tadhg and Diarmuid shot her eldest son in an inheritance row over the family farm. She ran to a neighbour’s house to raise the alarm after realising Mark had been shot.

After Mark’s shooting Diarmuid and Tadhg went to a field some 600 metres from the farmhouse in Kanturk and ended their own lives.

Prior to ending their lives, the pair told Ms O’Sullivan that she would have to live with the despair of what had occurred.

Ms O’Sullivan attended both the funeral of Diarmuid and Tadhg and the separate requiem mass of her son Mark.

Diarmuid and Tadhg were buried together at St Brigid’s Cemetery in Castlemagner whilst Mark was laid to rest in a plot belonging to his mother’s family following a funeral mass in Kanturk. In funeral notices, Ms O’Sullivan was described as a “heartbroken” widow and mother.

At Mark’s funeral Mass in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Kanturk mourners were told that he accompanied his mother to Dublin the month before his death. There she underwent surgery for a serious medical condition.

Sharmilla Rahman said in a tribute to her friend Mark at his requiem mass that he was “the greatest son a mother could have.”

I know the bond between Mark and Anne was unbreakable. He had such a big heart and so much love to give as a friend. I know that but I can’t begin to imagine how much effort and love he put into being Anne’s son.

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