18-05-2025
Family of mum and kids murdered by husband demand Garda review be made public
The devastated family of a mother and three children murdered by her husband want the Garda review into the case to be made public.
The killing of Clodagh Hawe, 39, and her sons Liam, 13, Niall, 11, and six-year-old Ryan, by evil Alan Hawe before he took his own life, at their home in Ballyjamesduff, Co Cavan, shocked the nation.
Now Clodagh's sister Jacqueline Connolly is demanding the Garda review into the August 2016 killings be put on the public record so other families can see the tell tale signs of such danger.
She appealed to Garda Commissioner Drew Harris to release the findings as a matter of urgency so that services and people around the country are made fully aware of what coercive control is and what "family annihilators" look like.
Speaking this week in an interview on her local radio station Northern Sound, Jacqueline said: "One in three women are being coercively controlled and the Garda Commissioner needs to publish the findings so that these services and the country are aware of what family annihilators look like. Four-and-a-half years was spent trying to find answers as to why Alan Hawe murdered our family.
"The general public are entitled after their tax money being spent on a review, to see those findings.
"They need to be armed with this information, it is vital information, to protect and prevent domestic violence, for murder suicides and coercive control and all that comes with it."
Jacqueline has launched a new book, Deadly Silence, about the horrific family murders and tells of their long fight for justice.
The Garda Review was carried out in 2019 after complaints by the family during media interviews about the initial investigation.
Ms Connolly told how the first investigation failed to follow up on information including "mishandling" CCTV and other evidence such as a secret phone Hawe used as well as laptops and other digital devices which were all destroyed before the review took place. Some of the findings from the Garda Review have been shared with the family but none have been made public.
Ms Connolly said: "We should never have to battle for eight years and two investigations. There should never have been failings.
"The onus should never have been on me and Mam to fight for justice.
"But no, that meeting in 2019 was very much 'nothing to see here' when in fact there was plenty and the review was very critical of how the initial investigation was carried out.
"The 'why' wasn't accounted for in the first investigation.
"We had to fight, we were made to go public, if we didn't, where would we be now." She told how her brother-in law, a school vice-principal, was obsessed about what other people thought of him even in death.
She added: "It was all about perception to him. Holier than thou. He wanted people to believe he was still a good man, like by killing Clodagh and the boys he was somehow doing them a favour, sparing them his downfall."
Ms Connolly said it was later discovered Hawe had a porn addiction.
He shared email accounts with his wife but operated an unknown alias using the fake name John Smithers.
Nobody was able to access the account or discover what it was subscribing to.
They also learned the killer dad had been planning to murder his family for at least a year in advance.
She added: "There were behaviours, patterns leading up. He'd done the research, stuff online. That wasn't shown in the first investigation. He moved the furniture knowing Clodagh's back would be turned when it came to it.
"He was a wolf in sheep's clothing who fooled us all. Looking back, he and Clodagh's relationship was not normal."
Alan was initially buried with his wife and children and his body later exhumed after objections from her family.
