Communities devastated by suicide have set up their own support networks for young people, writes Mark Rodden.

It began with the death of a 28-year-old father 11 weeks ago. Six weeks later a 15-year-old from the same rural village died by suicide and a month later another two 15-year-olds took their own lives. The three teenagers were from the same school in Armagh.

Those deaths followed that of a 24-year-old from Dublin and a 20-year-old from Omagh, whose bodies were found at Gortin Lakes in Tyrone after they apparently arranged their deaths through an internet chat room.

The latest cluster of deaths of young men by suicide has shocked Northern Ireland but has also highlighted that suicide can and does touch every community throughout Ireland.

The statistics are distressing. Ireland has the fifth highest rate of suicides in Europe among young people and death by suicide is the principal cause of death in young Irish men.

In 1980, 216 people were recorded as taking own lives, but by 2001 this figure had reached 519. Although suicide rates have decreased in recent years, statistics show that 432 people lost their lives to suicide in 2005, while nearly 11,000 incidents of self-harm are reported at A&E units throughout the country each year.

Then there are the cases that are not reported. Experts suggest that the real number of people deliberately harming themselves could be closer to 60,000, while undetermined deaths mean the suicide rate could be higher.

But behind theses statistics are hundreds of families who have had to cope with the loss of a loved one. A survey by the Irish Association of Suicidology (IAS) last year showed that 74 per cent of people in Ireland know someone who has ended their life by suicide.

"Statistics are fine," says Dr John Connolly of IAS. "But there's no solace or consolation in the statistics because behind every statistic is an unnecessary death, a loss of life . . . a grieving family and a hurt community." Communities are now being driven to respond to the problem. In recent years, new services have cropped up throughout the country aimed at suicide prevention and helping families bereaved by suicide.

West Dublin is among the many areas that have been badly hit by suicide recently. Suburbs such as Tallaght, Clondalkin, Ballyfermot, Palmerstown and Finglas have lost many members of their communities, predominantly young men, this way.

The past two years have seen a huge increase in support services based in the area. Organisations such as Teenline, Console, Samaritans TeenHelp and the Finglas Suicide Network are among a number of community-driven projects that have been set up in response to the problem, while Pieta House, a community-based centre in Lucan, opened in January 2006.

In 2005, the Finglas Suicide Network was formed in response to a large number of suicides in a short space of time in the area. It estimates that 20 people have taken their lives in Finglas since 2005. Olive Ring, who works with the Finglas committee, says its work focuses on prevention, intervention and bereavement. "We ourselves work with that group of young men, 15- to 24-year-olds, who are the most at risk of suicide, and we would have lost a number of young men to suicide last year that we would have worked with directly, and a number of their friends," she says.

The network is linked up with Console, and hopes to agree a deal whereby a counsellor from Pieta House will be available in Finglas to help young people who might feel suicidal.

Pat Teehan, the Revitalising Areas by Planning, Investment and Development (Rapid) co-ordinator in Ballyfermot, and who helped set up TeenHelp last year, says 26 young people from the general area died in the first three months of 2006. The deaths by suicide included five friends from the Ballyfermot, Clondalkin and Palmerstown areas who all took their lives within 18 months.

The service, which has seen a number of local volunteers receive training from the Samaritans on how to operate helplines, is "community based, community driven and community owned", according to Teehan. "These are all local people who recognised the problem in the community and want to do something about it," he says.

Another support group, North Clondalkin Community Action on Suicide (CAS) was also formed two years ago to address the rate of suicides in the area using a community development approach. Fr John Dunphy, who has been working in Clondalkin for the past 14 years, says they are "very lucky" to have Pieta House, which offers free counselling to those affected by suicide or self-harm, so close by. "If somebody is suicidal, it's a service that we can use straightaway. There really should be a Pieta House in every community, because that kind of an immediate service is needed."

But it's not just in Dublin that communities are responding to the problem. Almost every county in Ireland has sought a response to a problem that is a societal one as well as a public health issue.

"Suicide tends to be a problem that is over-medicalised," says Dr Connolly. "That's unfortunate, because people can say 'Well, that's a medical problem, I don't have to do anything about it', when in fact it is society's problem."

While loss of self-esteem, substance abuse and relationship breakdown are things that may contribute to someone taking their own life, many people believe that the pace of change, the decline in community, the lessening influence of the church and the pressure to succeed in Celtic Tiger Ireland are significant associated factors.

"Our society compared to 20 years ago has become so materialistic," says Teehan. "We teach our kids to be goal-driven and from the time they can talk they're being pushed to perform at particular levels. That sort of pressure is bound to make something crack." Peer pressure and a changing family unit have also made it difficult for children, he believes.

Prevention is important, but services that offer support to families who have been bereaved by suicide are also vital. Console, which was set up in 2002 by families who lost loved ones through suicide, now has offices in Dublin, Galway and Limerick.

'The reallityis, for a lot of us we don't know that much about services in Ireland until we have immediate need. In particular, suicide bereavement . . . is something people don't even want to think about ever having to need," says Josephine Quinlan, Console's counselling co-ordinator in Limerick .

Console provides counselling for people who have been bereaved by suicide and the Limerick office, which opened last October, is designed to provide support for families in Tipperary, Clare and Limerick. Quinlan says that even if there is a previous history of self-harm, no family can be prepared for a death by suicide. "For some people it may be quite easy to see the lead-up but I still think, even when there may have been obvious distress that was communicated, they often still don't think that suicide would occur."

She says it's important for families to have someone to talk to about how they're feeling, to help them to understand their grief and to realise that no one is to blame. "If they start blaming themselves it's going to bring on different scenarios such as depression, or going to a low place themselves," she says.

Raising awareness of the services on offer is difficult, according to Dr Connolly. A survey by the Irish Association of Suicidology found that 39 per cent of Irish people aged between 15 and 24 could not name any support services available to people who are suicidal.

The Tough Times campaign, which is co-ordinated by the youth-led Spunout.ie website, has sought to address this by telling young people that it is normal to go through difficult times in life. Launched last week, and commissioned and jointly funded by Console and Turning the Tide of Suicide, it also aims to raise awareness of the supports available.

Both Teehan and Ring say that services should get young people involved rather than talking at them. "There's no point in putting on an event that no young person wants to attend. So if done through rap or through a concert, using websites such as Spunout, if it's a youth-friendly way of doing it, then it makes a lot more sense," says Ring.

"Teenagers aren't going to always walk into a GP and say [ they are] feeling depressed," she says. "Phones, text, the youth culture will look for things like that, that will actually work with young people, rather than what we think might work." For community services to be effective, Ring believes it is vital to get a balance of local people and professionals working together.

"Local people are usually the people who will know best what they need and what will work in their own area," she says. "There is a sense of empowerment and a sense of ownership over a programme like the one we ran here because it was very much run by the people who live in Finglas." Dr Connolly says community organisations need to carry out proper research to identify gaps in the service, and to have clearly defined aims, if they are to make a difference.

"Community involvement is really terribly important, but it has to be done properly. Far too often you see things happening as a sort of knee-jerk reaction to the latest tragedy rather than being thought through, planned and set up in a coherent fashion," he says.

He says that sometimes voluntary organisations can deal with the problems in a way that statutory bodies cannot. "The important thing we have to bear in mind is to look at how valuable the voluntary community effort is, because voluntary organisations are the interface between the professionals, the Government departments and the people," says Dr Connolly.

Most community-led support agencies operate using the money they raise through fundraising or donations and grants they receive. Last week the Let's Get Together Foundation, a service run by Pat Buckley, who lost two brothers to suicide, was forced to withdraw its free counselling services, though it has dramatically reduced suicide rates in Midleton, Co Cork. Samaritans TeenHelp, whose phone lines are provided by Smart Telecom, was suspended for a time when the phone company's financial problems were revealed.

A suicide awareness campaign run by Finglas Suicide Network earlier this year was funded by an ESB Electric Aid grant.

"There's lots of projects out there, doing brilliant work on the ground, run by people who really are passionate about it, but that are not getting the funding," says Ring.

Even in the absence of State funding, such services will strive to continue to offer a valuable service by providing a community response to a community problem. "In as much as you can have an effect and do something about it, an emergency service is what's needed in each community," Fr Dunphy says.

"People might look for help if they knew that the help was very close at hand."