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News

Daughter’s heartbreak at scene of devastation

Thursday August 28 2008

SO upset was Denis Harris’s daughter, Paula, when she visited her dad’s bog on Sunday that she broke down in tears. She said that the devastation caused by the weekend’s landslide was overwhelming and seeing her dad struggle through fields to get to his family and friends is heart-breaking. "I go to bed crying thinking about him on his own.

He has to walk for miles so we can meet him and at 66 years of age that’s not good enough. It breaks my heart to leave him every night, knowing he’s stranded on his own,” she told The Kerryman. Paula said that events of the past few days are difficult to comprehend, especially knowing that her father could have left the house earlier and have been caught up in the middle of the landslide.

“It doesn’t bear thinking about. Anyone of us could have been heading up to see him or he could have been in the middle of it. It’s frightening,” she said. What frightenes Paula and her family even more is the continuing uncertainty that now surrounds the area, with everyone wondering if another bog-burst is imminent. “We dread to think that we’ll never see home in the future or if it will be ever again safe to pass in case the danger occurs again,” she said.

Paula also highlighted the urgent need to have some form of roadway established to allow her dad proper access to his home, adding that expecting a man of his age to walk through fields of ‘brutal land’ to get see his family is not acceptable. She, along with her father, paid tribute to friends, family and even outsiders who have shown exceptional support to the family over the past few days. “It’s times like this you know who your friends are,” she said.

 

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