{"id":490136,"date":"2026-06-09T05:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T05:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/490136\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T05:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T05:58:09","slug":"my-brothers-suicide-the-almost-unbearable-guilt-of-having-had-a-row-last-time-i-saw-him-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/490136\/","title":{"rendered":"My brother\u2019s suicide: \u2018The almost unbearable guilt of having had a row last time I saw him\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Something came up on my Insta feed this morning \u2013 a physical exercise that can free you from mental anxiety, explaining there is no difference between physical and mental wellbeing, that the two are inextricably linked.<\/p>\n

And I got overwhelmed with sadness about my brother Hughie.<\/p>\n

I often get this weird feeling that there is still something I can do to prevent him taking his own life.<\/p>\n

I know this doesn\u2019t make any sense \u2013 I think it\u2019s called magical thinking \u2013 where you envisage things you can change, long after the disaster has happened. Maybe that\u2019s what happened me this morning; maybe if I could have told Hughie that there were simple physical exercises he could do to bring him out of his regular periods of despair. How, if I had known this stuff then, he\u2019d still be here, happy and alive and being his brilliant, funny, beautiful self.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s more than 20 years since he died, but the wave of sadness that swept over me this morning felt like it was only a couple of weeks ago. What can I do to save him?<\/p>\n

Here I am, talking in the present tense again, what can I do, rather than what could I have done? All the therapists I spoke to after his death told me to stop feeling guilt. That I was the best I could have been to him. And by and large, I know this to be true.<\/p>\n

I talked and talked and talked to him when he was down. His periods of wellness started to get shorter, so there was a lot of talking towards the end of his life. He often asked me to hug him, that definitely calmed him down \u2013 we all know the power of hugs to reset anxiety levels. So never underestimate this as a gesture to someone who\u2019s struggling.<\/p>\n

\"HughieHughie and Ellie. <\/p>\n

Also, talk to someone who you think may have suicidal ideation, say the word suicide<\/a> \u2013 it\u2019s not going to trigger them to do it \u2013 quite the opposite, in fact. I could see the wave of relief that would wash over Hughie when I opened the door to that conversation. It was what he needed \u2013 to talk about how it was a constant backdrop to his every waking moment.<\/p>\n

I would write little cue cards for him and title them \u201cReasons to Be Cheerful\u201d (he was a huge Ian Dury fan \u2013 there are photos of Hughie at one of his gigs at The Stardust<\/a> in Dublin, of all places). He would bring these cue cards around with him in his inside pocket.<\/p>\n

\"'I‘I talked and talked and talked to him when he was down. His periods of wellness started to get shorter, so there was a lot of talking towards the end of his life.’ <\/p>\n

One of my cue cards was on his bedside locker the night before he died.<\/p>\n

The year or so after his death is a blur. I was unhinged with grief and anguish. I nearly lost my family \u2013 they didn\u2019t know what to do with me.<\/p>\n

Apart from the obvious grief and trauma of losing a beloved sibling to suicide, was the almost unbearable guilt of having had a row with him the last time I saw him. Not a two-way row, in the usual sense, but I had lost it with him \u2013 screamed that I couldn\u2019t keep having the same conversations with him over and over. I was beside myself. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Kneecap\u2019s M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap speaks of mother\u2019s death by suicide: \u2018We have to alleviate that extra burden of shame\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He\u2019d been staying with me and Pete for a couple of weeks, and the stress of worrying about him had taken its toll on us all. I had never ever lost my cool with him, always tried to be loving and patient and sympathetic to his awful, awful anguish. But that night I wasn\u2019t able be the support he needed. I knew I would be grand again in a couple of days, but that one night… I can still see him driving away from our house in his van, with a dark cloud of sadness over his face.<\/p>\n

I did, of course, call him the following day and apologised, and he was as sweet and lovely as ever. But I couldn\u2019t shake the guilt. I still have the old Nokia phone that has his last ever text to me, him checking to make sure I\u2019d got home safely from work that evening \u2013 it was a stormy, wild night.<\/p>\n

\"EllieEllie and Hughie in a childhood shot. <\/p>\n

Two weeks later, he was gone. Jesus. I have by and large let go of the guilt. I know, I think, that I was a source of strength and solace to Hughie during his darkest times. He called me \u201cPrecious darling heart\u201d in a suicide note (from a previous attempt, not the ultimate note, that was just a two-liner \u2013 bleak, and final).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not entirely sure why I\u2019ve felt the need to share this. It\u2019s just come pouring out of me. Self-therapy of some kind.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Preventing suicide needs everyone\u2019s input. Here\u2019s how the GAA plays its partOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

But I hope maybe it might be of use to someone who\u2019s lost someone to suicide. Sometimes, the loved one who\u2019s taken their life is in so much pain that their chosen path is to leave the pain behind. To free themselves of the agony. That\u2019s a choice to be respected, despite the apocalyptic grief their decision causes. I can\u2019t tolerate any talk of suicide being a selfish act. We can\u2019t measure the actions of someone who has taken that choice by our own non-depressed metric.<\/p>\n

I hope this piece hasn\u2019t caused upset and that if there are any useful takeaways from this, they\u2019re the following:<\/p>\n

1. Don\u2019t be afraid to talk about suicide to a person you\u2019re worried about. Trust me, it will be such a relief to them to be able to say the word out loud.<\/p>\n

2. Don\u2019t underestimate the power of a deep hug. It is literally a lifeline, a physical connection that can re-set and reduce their anxiety and levels of anguish.<\/p>\n

3. Talk, talk, talk.<\/p>\n

4. This is vital: Get help yourself \u2013 there are so many support groups out there nowadays that offer ways to help someone with depression.<\/p>\n

5. And ultimately, remember that you are not responsible if someone does make that choice. They can\u2019t bear the pain.<\/p>\n

Hughie Byrne. March 18th, 1961 \u2013 November 12th, 2005<\/p>\n

\"'I‘I know, I think, that I was a source of strength and solace to Hughie during his darkest times.’ Useful Contacts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Something came up on my Insta feed this morning \u2013 a physical exercise that can free you from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,410,82,44228,14394],"class_list":["post-490136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-science","tag-stardust","tag-suicide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}