Last week a phone call came from the editor of the Irish Echo, a Sydney-based newspaper geared towards Australia’s massive Irish community, which I had freelanced for on occasion. There was an important press conference about to get underway, he said, and he wanted me to cover it.
The previous Sunday, Irish backpacker Gearoid Walsh got into a row in a kebab shop in the Coogee area of the city after a night out. Punches were thrown and Gearoid went down, hitting his head on the ground. He slipped into a coma and was taken to hospital.
The 23-year-old Dubliner had come to Australia – where his 22-year-old sister Aoife and 27-year-old brother Ciaran were already living – due to the scarcity of work in Ireland. He secured a job installing roof insulation with his brother in Brisbane, and had made a weekend trip to Sydney, his first to the city, for his sister’s 22nd birthday celebrations when the incident took place.
Gearoid’s mother Tressa flew to Sydney on hearing the news, and shortly afterwards she and the rest of the Walsh family took the decision to turn off his life support machine.
At least five people, including Gearoid’s brother, witnessed the incident and gave descriptions of the assailant to police. Police said the incident was also caught on CCTV, but because they had been unable to identify their suspect, they decided to call the press conference in an effort to prompt the man they were looking for to come forward.
There was a sense of dread as I walked into the police building where the press conference was due to take place. Fights happen all the time, and generally nobody comes away with anything worse than a burst lip or a bruised ego. But here the police were getting a murder hunt underway and I felt sorry for the bloke they were after. In my opinion all he was guilty of was throwing a few digs after a night out – something quite a few of us have done at some stage or another. I really didn’t want to sit and watch the victim’s heartbroken mother calling for the head of the man who killed her son, which I felt sure she would.
The chattering journos fell quiet when Tressa Walsh and her son Ciaran walked silently into the room and took their seats. I was shocked at Tressa’s poise after what must have been a horrific experience, but the content of the statement she read out was more amazing still.
She began by telling those gathered a bit about the type of guy Gearoid was, and his reasons for coming to Australia. He was having the time of his life here, by all accounts. She thanked the police for their help in their search for the man Gearoid had had the altercation with; the hospital staff for taking care of him during his last days; and Sydney’s Irish community for their support.
Then she made a statement about the man police were searching for. “As a mother, I really feel for this guy who got into a fight with Gearoid,” she said. “We don’t want him to serve time in prison. I think he was just very, very unlucky.”
She continued: “Myself and my family are appealing for him to come forward and get closure on this and some peace. We don’t want him to torture himself – I don’t see this as a murder.”
She went on to say how she and her family had decided to give Gearoid’s organs to Australians in need of transplants. Tressa added that it had “given meaning to this awful incident”. It was a phenomenal act of generosity given the fact that police were still hunting the Australian they felt was responsible for his death.
The man involved in this tragedy was unlikely to have been a hardened crim for whom the pleas of victims or their families would be irrelevant. He most probably just a normal bloke who had a few too many, and got into a row over some non-event or other. I knew that when he saw or read about what Gearoid’s mother said he would hand himself in. And within hours he did just that.
