Eden Heaslip

And all the boyos got away with it and are probably going around laughing about it. To even send messages after he died - I don't think scumbag is a harsh enough word to describe them. What the hell is wrong with people?

Could the Gardai go after his tormentors for something or is it just too late?

There's thousands getting bullied in our primary and secondary schools day in and day out, thousands have committed suicide Because of relentless bullying , schools deny it's happening , teachers turn a blind eye because they know that their hands are tied and the parents of the children who are bullying don't give two **** ,

Another new bullying initive is being pushed geared towards protecting trans and gender non conforming children from being bullied ,

But how about actually trying to protect all children from bullying ,make it a criminal offense for schools and principles not to inform the Gardai when a child has been repeatedly assaulted,

The department and minister of education should be held to account when Children have suffered repeated assaults and were not protected

Shocking account if you take everything as read. I suppose you might wonder why he was kept in school if he was that unhappy but that'd also be looking back in hindsight.

One thing really struck me, the lad was badgered with being 'a black Protestant' and told to go back to his own country. That Cavan school and those parents of these bullies need to root that mentality out and stamp it on the head pronto.

What the hope is there ever for a united Ireland by consent if the kids of Cavan and presumably other border counties are so filled with sectarian bile like this? Shame on them :(

Really sorry to hear this has happened to your kids. Absolutely shocking. You did the right thing confronting it head on, it is the best action imo. The school have behaved appallingly, I wouldn't let it drop.

I was bullied once at school, it still sticks in my head now and I am 40. I was happy go lucky for pretty much all of my time in school bar a few months when this big fat fecker bullied me (he was close to 6 foot I was about 5'5..). I wasn't a kid I was 15, I broke down my parents went absolutely bloody spare, my mum went over to their house, within 30 minutes the other kid and his parents were in our front room. His parents were absolutely mortified, he was in floods of tears....my mum ripped him apart.

The bullying ended right there, he avoided me like the plague for 3 years.

There's a lot of threads on Boards at the moment with overlapping themes. The dominant view on the thread relating to the tragic event in Tullamore is that no one has the right to suggest that men collectively bear any responsibility for an environment where women feel unsafe, or experience unpleasant interactions with men.

On the thread about proposed legislation to do with hate speech, the dominant view is that is is unnecessary and will create more problems than it will fix.

And now this story, I saw a short clip of Eden's father talking and in it he said that Eden told him it was never just one person who attacked him, it was always more than one or a group. A huge part of this type of bullying is what examples are set amongst peers and in fact, it is probable that at times some people end up bullying others because of peer pressure, where they are either directed to do something or just do so as to not become the target.

And the example this sets amongst kids does impact the adults they grow up to be and the society in which they all live (that is why the conversation overlaps with the other threads).

But what to do about it? Is there any simple answer, schools can hold some responsibility as to how they act but they certainly can't stop or identify all bullying that goes on not to mention how so much of it can now happen outside of school or through social media. I will likely not have children of my own and while that bothers me in plenty ways, one way it doesn't is not having to worry about the absolute minefield that is introducing your kids to social media and keeping them safe. I have no idea how anyone should approach it without either having your child miss out on what is a significant interface through which they will have to be able to operate as adults or having them exposed to content and the whims of others that they just won't be ready for.

If the threads I mentioned indicated a general willingness to do what we can for the society we live in, I would think that a message of never tolerating bullying even if we aren't involved would be more likely to possible to communicate that to children so that issues could be identified sooner and there wouldn't be a stigma of not wanting to be the one to highlight something is wrong, but when so many people react with the view that 'It's not my problem, don't expect me to do a thing to fix it', how can we expect children be given an appropriate example by which to follow?

The cat is long out of the box when it comes to the internet, that it grew with anonymity as a given is a problem in many ways (as well as some positives). Maybe if people had to register their identity with a body/group and any personality/account they created online had to use a token from that site, there could be traceability in the case of inappropriate behaviour which police forces could access should they need to while still giving the user anonymity in the movement it would be some sort of a solution, but it would take massive buy in and engagement from social media platforms and other sites for something like this to come in now and I'm not sure that it would be possible.

I knew a man who lost his young daughter in a same way after she was bullied online, and much the same as the tragedy of Aisling Murphy, for every event with the ultimate horrific outcome, there are many thousand stories that started out in the same way.

The solution to these issues need to be as much societal as they do legislative or through assigning responsibility.

I'd hate to be a kid in school nowadays it was bad enough back in the day but at least it finished come the final bell, as previously mentioned bullying these days is 24/7 with the internet and smartphones - the stress that would bring on a young fragile mind is unthinkable - god help them😔

I think they can hold some responsibility, I am aware of schools that do. But there are many different levels to being bullied and some of it can be very subjective. Say one child is constantly ignored, left to play on their own, made fun of etc.

That can be as harmful as physical abuse, and much harder to act upon. Not to mention what happens over social media, even if during school time, do you think parents would be ok with teachers/schools getting involved to that level?

The instance I referred to above where a young girl took her own life, that was done via a social media platform by people she went to school with, but it was being done outside of school.

Schools play a role, but they are only one part of this and society needs to show its interest in stopping bullying more than just demanding schools are responsible for all of it that happens on their property.

How can people be so cruel, its a complete mystery to me. Some people are just awful and these bullies certainly are awful people.

Lets be clear, whatever about anyone else, I'm not blaming the parents of bullied kids for giving their children access to the internet.

You seem to think schools are ignoring the problem, I've experience of schools being very proactive and still the problem exists.

I also don't necessarily think it starts in schools as a definitive statement, of course it is a problem there given how much time children spend there, and inevitably it starts there in some instances. But I know of a number of instances where it started in sports clubs.

Some kids are inclined to bully and they will take opportunities to do that whether it is in schools, clubs, teams, or in their own home. Its way more complicated than just blaming schools for all of it.

yeah, Catholics really need to step up, we need to do better to make Ireland a safer place for protestants to live in, if there's ever going to be any chance of a united ireland

I think schools and Gardai need to empower young people in particular to seek help and that the Gardai will have their backs…. That can only happen if accountability exists. The law and its enforcers need to be more wiling and accessible to stick up for victims of bullying.. Gardai and the criminal justice system are not and are accountable to nobody…

bullying now seems to be an absolute epidemic in life… in educational settings, work settings even recently in another healthcare setting I witnessed it… personally….there literally is zero deterrent…

to stop evil and malevolence like it there needs to be a deterrent…the law on paper… is to an extent ok, however … the non enforcement of it, however makes it literally not worth the paper it’s written on…

these fûcking mental heathers whose opinions we are force fed ad nauseam seem to value the needs wants and health of the perpetrators more then their victims… we need to tune these amateurs out of social media, all media in fact out of life full stop…. and get back our focus towards helping the innocent…the victims..

young people who are misguided can receive a caution which isn’t a criminal record…..that’s a slap on the wrist… at it again…. Charge…Court…Convict…Sentence…. Fûck em…