Around Ireland Dead man writing

By Patrick Markey

In a case that resembles an award-winning Hollywood movie, a Tuam, Co. Galway, nun is the only contact with the outside world for a convicted killer now languishing on death row in a Caribbean prison.

With their relationship reminiscent of the Oscar-winning movie "Dead Man Walking," every week, the man, who could be hanged at a few days’ notice on Trinidad and Tobago, writes letters and poetry to Sister Teresa Nolan as he counts down the days to his execution, reports the Tuam Herald.

Sr. Nolan, a nun in the Mercy of Convent, has been writing to the convicted killer for more than two years and receives regular letters from the man. Desmond Baptiste, who is 29, has been on death row in Port of Spain for more than nine years since he was jailed in the late 1980s for murder. The Caribbean island enforces the death penalty and criminals are paraded through the streets before they are hanged, the paper reported.

Sr. Teresa revealed yesterday that Baptiste writes to her every week and that she replies by sending letters and books. However, she said that in doing this, she has not forgotten the plight of the victims of crime.

"I started doing this when I heard a feature on the radio about Lifelines, an organization set up to help prisoners who are facing execution the world over," she said.

"I started writing to Dessie Baptiste two years ago and have found it enormously rewarding. I was obviously nervous about corresponding with someone like this in the beginning."

She said that through the letters, she has been introduced to his family and that she also receives regular letters from Baptiste’s mother. Their correspondence concentrated on the present and did not concentrate on the likely outcome, she said.

The correspondence between the Mayo-born nun and the killer is reminiscent of the campaign led by Canadian nun Sr. Helen Prejean, whose true story was told in "Dead Man Walking," starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon.

"I am not condoning the crimes which Desmond and the others on death row have done, but writing to them, you are just showing an element of Mercy to them," Nolan said.

"Some of the letters are very depressing and desolate as there are times that life on death row gets very bleak and the letters being thrown in the door to them is the main event of the week."

Limerick tragedy

Two County Limerick communities were recovering recently from two devastating freak accidents that killed a young nurse home on holiday and a widow returning from morning Mass.

In the first incident, Lauri Colbert died in the morning when the wheel of a passing articulated milk truck came loose, jumped the sidewalk and struck her, reported the Limerick Leader newspaper. A teenager walking behind was also slightly injured.

Colbert was making the short journey from the church, where she had attended Mass, to her home when the accident occurred. The widow and mother of five adult children died instantly. Garda experts were examining the truck to find out what exactly caused the wheel to come loose, the paper reported.

But even as her community was preparing to say its final farewell to Colbert, another tragedy was in the making for the nearby communities of Foynes/Askeaton.

Michelle Grant, 26, had arrived home a few days earlier on a short break from her nursing job in Jersey — a surprise visit for her mother. On the morning the Abbeyfeale community laid Colbert to rest, Grant and her sister Sinead left for Limerick. Sinead was going for a job interview and Michelle was a passenger in her car.

On the straight stretch beyond Ferrybridge, after a truck had overtaken them, Sinead slowed down when she noticed stones on the road. But an oncoming car catapulted one of the stones through the windscreen, hitting Michelle on the forehead and killing her instantly.

Hard margins

Irish people’s attitudes to resident minority groups, such as Travelers, asylum-seekers, and refugees have hardened in recent years, according to a newly released study.

The Galway Advertiser reports that is one of the findings of a study commissioned by the Western Province of the Sisters of Mercy and launched in Knock, Co. Mayo, recently.

The two-year study also indicated that gay and lesbian people in the West of Ireland were concerned about the level of homophobia in the region.

Despite the availability of more support for marginalized people, many continue to experience strong feelings of isolation, lack of worth, and an inability to alter their status, according to the study.

In addition the single most destructive experience of people living in poverty, was a lack of respect, the report noted. Poorer people felt they were not always treated with respect by the statutory services, such as housing, education, and health.

Travelers said the discrimination they face adversely affects their job prospects. Gays and lesbians lived with a constant threat of violence, the study said.