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Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > Periscope > Focus should be on depression not media in Irish Minister’s suicide -- Deep seated issue of depression and suicide needs full exploration

Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

Focus should be on depression not media in Irish Minister’s suicide -- Deep seated issue of depression and suicide needs full exploration

Posted on Tuesday, December 25, 2012 at 04:08 AM

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Shane McEntee RIP (Photo - AP)

We in the media business take our fair share of the blame for demonizing individuals and sometimes jumping to wrong conclusions.

But I think it is stretching it to say that media is responsible for the suicide of a prominent politician as is being alleged in Ireland.

I knew Shane McEntee the Minister of State for Agriculture who took his own life in tragic circumstances last week. I had met him on many occasions and he struck me as the prototype of a rural Irish politician deeply involved in his community and well liked and respected.

He was a man who had achieved an amazing amount in his too-short life and was clearly beloved as the massive 3,000 people at his funeral showed.

The reports in the media there say he was likely driven to suicide by the negative media coverage he received in recent months, as part of an increasingly unpopular government imposing more and more hardship on people.

I find it hard to believe that would have been the whole reason for his suicide however,
Anyone entering politics in Ireland knows it is a full contact blood sport where the real enemies, due to the electoral system, are far more likely to be in your own party than across the floor in the other parties.

Sure, there has been a coarsening in Irish life and the new media outlets including social media are relentless in their pursuit of individuals in attempts to bring them down.

But every politician I know either here or in Ireland factors in that issue and knows well that this week’s controversy is next week’s fish and chip wrapper and the carnival moves on.

They are able to separate the political from the personal and to understand that , irrespective of how intense political discussion and criticism becomes, it rarely has the power to impact to the horrific extent of suicide.

What I am saying is by definition, politicians have thick skins and are highly unlikely to be driven to suicide by headlines.

Long term depression is another matter altogether and it is clear all was not well with Shane McEntee for him to have taken such a drastic course.

Whatever happened it is an unmitigated tragedy for him and his family. What hopefully it does do is shine a light on depression and the causes of suicide in a country still remarkably reluctant to deal with an issue that has become an urgent problem.

Perhaps that would be the best legacy of this tragic death that suicide and its causes become a major focus of the government he served so well and so proudly. That would be a fitting legacy for Shane McEntee if his death helped stop other suicides.

A witch hunt against Internet trolls on the other hand has no lasting value.

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jimod4343 | Dec 27, 2012, 12:48 PM EST

F**k you @Paul Hogan. You obviously know little or nothing about depression. It can shut down the survival instinct and lead to mistaken thinking and assumptions about the individual's situation.

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jacersagain | Dec 27, 2012, 10:40 AM EST

Like many, I was deeply shocked and saddened to learn of Minister McEntee’s death (RIP). Word through the grapevine in Ireland says it WAS the vitriolic attacks by media personnel and on social websites that destroyed him and his will to carry on with his work, however distasteful it might be seen. Sorry, Niall – but nope … I don’t agree that the media didn’t have a role to play in his undeserved manner of death. Shame on you for even THINKING to publish a poor excuse on behalf of your fellow-media people.

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butlerreport | Dec 27, 2012, 07:48 AM EST

We Irish like to blame others for everything. That's why the media is getting the blame for this unfortunate death.

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Searlit | Dec 26, 2012, 10:49 PM EST

@ phinsman, I agree that bullying should be a crime. What a shame for so many lives to be lost.

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phinsman | Dec 26, 2012, 03:41 PM EST

To be honest, I truly think that bullying should be a crime. So many people have committed suicide due to bullying. No one is perfect. If someone has a recommendation on how a person can improve themselves, it should be said in a very diplomatic and caring way... not in a nasty way.

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phinsman | Dec 26, 2012, 11:39 AM EST

Why is is so private how he committed suicide? My guess it was a gun which does not fit with the anti gun view of Irish Central. Mental issues are the problem. May the minister rest in peace. I

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handsome68 | Dec 25, 2012, 12:04 PM EST

I agree with the writer, Schlomo, and EamonnDublin. The subject is complex; that's an understatement. Dialogue helps. My parents emigrated from Leitrim to America back in the late 1920's and '30s. They got knocked about, and so did my siblings and myself. We survived, but there was a casualty or two, like in most families. Pencil me in if you want to talk. I am even willing to talk with some of youse liberal omadhauns.

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Paul Hogan | Dec 25, 2012, 11:34 AM EST

He had a choice to live or die. Che Guevara did not have a choice. They gunned him down and he did more for the poor than anybody in South America. When you commit a suicide it is your own fault because you cannot face up to reality.

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Schlomo | Dec 25, 2012, 08:58 AM EST

EamonnDublin is spot on. Even the word "suicide" is verboten in the Irish MSM. He died tragically is the correct phrase. Keeping the peasants under control by inferring certain things should not be aired in public is the norm for the controlling elite, and the plebs simply take the veilled threats in stride and go on seeking instant pleasures while ignoring the cultural bullies.

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EamonnDublin | Dec 25, 2012, 08:52 AM EST

Experts in the causes of suicide say that there is ALWAYS more than one reason why a person commits suicide - that there is never one single reason alone. The Irish politicians are using this tragic death as a means for them to tell the Irish people to keep their mouths tightly shut, and let THEM get on with ruining OUR country. Éamonn, Dublin.

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