07-07-2025
What Stolen Sister series tells us about traumatic family loss
Analysis: As shown in Stolen Sister and the case of Elizabeth Plunkett, the loss of a sibling has a tremendous impact on family members
It happens with age. You find yourself amongst a group of peers talking about your first encounter with death. For many, it is a family pet or grandparent. In very tragic cases, it's a schoolmate. For a lucky few, these encounters do not come till well into their teenage years or beyond.
For me, I was almost two years old and it was my baby brother. The conversation would usually dissolve pretty quickly after that revelation.
It is understandable if people assume that the death of an infant sibling at such a young age wouldn't have much effect. However, it fundamentally shaped the person I became. As a child, I would constantly think about family members dying. If my parents went out at night, I would stay awake until the car lights lit up my room, indicating they were home safely.
When someone was unwell, I would crawl into their room to check they were breathing. In adolescence, I was averse to risk-taking because there was always a voice in my head telling me that my parents couldn't lose another child.
Trailer for the Stolen Sister podcast series about the murder of Elizabeth Plunkett in 1976
The bond between siblings is unique and, in many cases, not even death can break this connection. Right now, sisters Kathleen Nolan and Bernie Plunkett are leading a public appeal to reopen the murder investigation into the death of their sister Elizabeth, who was killed in 1976.
It was initially believed that Elizabeth's killers, John Shaw and Geoffrey Evans, were convicted of her murder nearly 50 years ago, but a parole application from Shaw in 2023 revealed that this was not the case. When the relevant State bodies wouldn't engage with the family, Kathleen and Bernie contacted RTÉ Documentary On One team to create the now streaming podcast series Stolen Sister to get justice for Elizabeth.
The long term effects of sibling loss and the lack of discussion around it has rattled around my brain for some time, often with the guilt that accompanies telling someone I have two siblings, when in fact I have three. Dr Heidi Horsley, Executive Director at Open to Hope Foundation and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, says that sibling loss can be minimised because people focus on parents, as research suggests that the worst loss that can happen to a person is the death of a child.
From RTÉ Radio 1's Today with Claire Byrne, documentary maker Nicoline Greer on the making of Stolen Sister
The flip side of this, she explains, is that siblings tend to be told to be strong for their parents and offer them their support, almost like a form of role reversal. "Sometimes siblings, we don't even feel like we have the right to our loss, because we feel like the focus should be on taking care of our parents," she says.
Because sibling loss takes up emotional energy in a family, and there can be a lot of talk, tears and emotion about the sibling that died, she adds it can make surviving siblings feel inadequate.
When a child dies, parents can also become anxious that another will also die, and so micromanage their remaining children. The grief experienced by small children can manifest in different ways, Dr Horsley explains: "stomach aches, headaches, fatigue, nightmares, night terrors".
Children can regress into habits like bedwetting, being afraid to sleep without a light on or a fear of monsters under their bed. This is because, Horsley says, children no longer view the world as a safe place after their sibling has died. Young children sometimes play with their dead siblings as if they're still alive, like an imaginary friend, despite knowing they're deceased, adds Dr Kristin Hadfield, Associate Professor at Trinity College Dublin.
From RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime, report on the verdict of 'unlawful killing' from an inquest in Gorey in January 2025 into the death of Elizabeth Plunkett whose family have been waiting 49 years for this inquest to take place
Horsley says sibling loss has a tremendous impact regardless of age because, according to research it's the longest living relationship most people will have. "Our parents will only, in contrast spend 40% to 60% of their lives with us, because they usually die before us. So they will spend 40% to 60% versus 80% to 100%," that we spend with siblings.
One of the hardest things for young children is the change in the family system, according to Dr Joanne Cacciatore, Professor at Arizona State University. If the eldest child dies and the second sibling finds themselves, at least at home, in the role of the oldest, it can be challenging to their identity.
Depending on the circumstances, families can go through the mourning process and move forward, says Dr Christopher Christian, Assistant Clinical Professor at Yale School of Medicine's Department of Psychiatry, but others struggle more.
Celebrations can remind people of their lost sibling, it can feel inappropriate to be marking an occasion, or that the surviving sibling does not deserve to be celebrated, he explains. "There's a kind of depriving oneself of any gratification in light of the loss, and if there was a lot of competitiveness with the sibling that also compounds, I think the mourning."
First episode of RTÉ's Stolen Sister documentary
Experts suggest that the way a sibling dies impacts the way their surviving sibling processes it. Hadfield says if a child dies unexpectedly or in a way where their sibling does not get to say goodbye, it is associated with a grief that is more prolonged or not as adaptive. However, if a child is involved in the family decision-making process, for example, funeral arrangements or hospital visits, this is linked to more positive outcomes for the child.
Overall, Hadfield says, it is vital that parents do not feel as if they have to handle this loss alone. "If the parent is suffering and continues to kind of suffer from mental health problems, then this is going to impact their relationship with their other children as well."
She describes the situation as "bi-directional" because the parents can no longer parent in the same way, and surviving children are more likely to be difficult to parent because they are also grieving.
The loss of a sibling can also leave people with a deep fear of loss, adds Cacciatore. When surviving siblings find themselves in a relationship with someone they love deeply, they don't want to lose that connection, but this can create "over-reactive states" she explains. Some will become more securely attached to their loved ones fearing that they'll die, but others will become anxious avoidant or avoidant and won't want to connect or feel attached because they understand the risk.
Another issue for adult surviving siblings can be whether to have children themselves. Christian says they wonder whether their children will die too, which might explain why some people are hesitant to enter relationships. When a person loses a sibling through a violent and disfiguring death, it can further complicate the healing process, adds Cacciatore.
Heidi Horsley's brother died at 17 in a car accident with his cousin. Both men burned to death, she says she had to deal with that trauma before she could manage her grief. "Because what happens in a traumatic loss is you're stuck in the narrative of how they died, and it's in your head playing over and over and over, and you need a safe person to be able to discuss what happened."
You know the preciousness of every moment in a different way than others do
The loss of a sibling becomes embedded in a family's history, Cacciatore says, even when the loss occurs before the surviving child is born. That being said, she adds that "lineage of grief or pain" as long as people stay conscious, can make them better as human beings, as it brings sensitivity and compassion towards the pain of others.
She thinks the loss of her own infant daughter made all her children more compassionate, including her son, who was born three years later. While it can be difficult to find any positives in the above information, Cacciatore's research measuring post-traumatic growth found that "appreciation of life" becomes an outcome, even if it takes time for people to reach that point.
"It doesn't happen for a while, but at some point when you're ready, you do value life differently. You know the preciousness of every moment in a different way than others do."
