Tragic 12-year-old Irish girl sought help from center before death

How was she buried from Church? RC church???? It is a sin to take your life

"the third young female to commit suicide . . . in two months." The newly approved US Violence Against Women Act has a section on cyberbullying. It is a crime! If parents and adult victims will use it to protect their children and themselves by demanding police and courts enforce it, we can bring this epidemic of teen suicides to an end. If we demand respect for women and girls, we'll get it. In Ireland and the USA, the only way is to bring the bullies into court to face judge and jury.

Picking on this poor girl is most certainly a sin. I would find her tormenters and send them to hard labor while they contemplate what they have done.

I feel like screaming its so sad keep your young teens off the computer I wish it were easy answer I know its not the schools dont punish the abusers so the abused is made to feel its their fault. The only answer is to punish severe the bullies.

I have spent my whole lifewanting to walk in the places my people were born, see the farm my mother was born on, see my da's 12 berothers and sisters still there. Not any more. I have my Irish passprot, as I am as Irish as the first Irshman that floated ob=ver 'home" on al log, but yor attitude toward Irish Ameircans, and your raising of your chilldren with no manners amongst all the rest- I dso not want to come any more! I wanted to buy a small home there and die with my own, but I wiull stay here thank you, you all seem to be liberals, & if I want lib arses they are right here in what USED to be the USA!

This is a terrible tragedy and I so badly for these girls and their families. What I cannot wrap my head around however is why parents are not better monitoring their kids on the internet, why cyber-bullying seems ot cause more deaths per anum than ever before, and when and how did people get so cruel as to twist up the bullying, but also when and how did young people cheapen their own value--when did they stop being thick skinned? It is the new medium to end one's life as if it has no meaning because a bunch of revolting people have taken to bullying? My children have been bullied, but in no way would I allow them to think it is tolerable to grieve their death vs fighting bullying alongside them!

I am so sorry that this seems to be becoming a common thing, not only in Ireland, but around the world. I guess these kids just aren't mature to realize that they don't need to keep going back to these websites to read all the negative things posted there. Continuing to visit the pages just fuels the sickos that persist in doing this type of thing, with no care to what they are doing to the person they are harassing. Or perhaps they are hoping that this will be the outcome. Who knows? It's just pathetic. May they all rest in the peace they didn't find in life.

So sad...cillowen, how would kicking a ball around help??

It's a pity that Lara, Erin and Ciara didn't get the help that they needed. If counseling didn't work, they should have had a medical evaluation. There are medical statistics about the lack of sunshine causing depression in winter. Also the stigma of guilt and shame plays a part in why families don't seek the treatment for family members, Why aren't there any programs in the school dealing with raising the self esteem of young woman who at this age are obsessed with how they fit in due to negative media influence.

This is the very thing we need to declare war on, wheres the massive protests on this. Its only trendy to protest for abortion but other things are simply not cool enough.

I felt like screaming.

should have gotten her to kick a ball around - where were her guardians. Those short dark days of fall and winter are another trigger - sad.

I am heartbroken to hear of Lara's death and my thoughts and prayers are with her family, friends and the team who tried to help her in Pieta house. When I read about what Lara, Ciara Pugsley and Erin Gallagher went through before their deaths, it’s so hard to know how we can respond in a meaningful way. I so appreciate Irish Central's coverage of how suicide is devastating communities in Ireland and MA. However reading words like "commit" and "committed” when referring to suicide in newspaper headlines, I realize how inadvertently the media can add to the stigma and shame, impeding people from reaching out for help. The Irish Media has a unique leadership opportunity to reject use of these terms (replacing them with compassionate phrases like death by suicide and died by suicide) in order to educate and offer support. My work here in Boston has taught me two things that we, as members of the Irish Community/Diaspora, can do immediately: Learn how to ask THE question by training as QPR Suicide Prevention Gatekeepers Make a simple change to the language we use when discussing suicide (replacing with phrases like death by suicide and died by suicide) to help reduce the stigma and ease the path to support. Doris Sommer-Rotenberg* writes; "The only acts we “commit” are felony(s), some kind of crime”. These expressions intensify “the stigma attached to the one who has died as well as to those who have been traumatized by this loss.” It is not against the law to feel so hopeless, to want relief from emotional pain. By using compassionate language, we are “better able to help those with suicidal feelings to take a crucial step back from despair, and to help those who have been bereaved by suicide to resolve their feelings of anguish and regret." I continue to welcome your reporting on this tragic topic. Your leadership “will help to replace silence and shame with discussion, interaction, insight". *CMJ 1998;159:239-40