Suicide in a farming family is more difficult to deal with than in other rural or urban families, writes Seán Mac Connell, Agriculture Correspondent
The farming community is uncomfortable with the whole idea of suicide, even though the serious problem relating to self-harm and suicide may well be more widespread in rural communities than in other sectors of society. This is because Catholicism is still strong in rural Ireland and the old idea that suicide victims cannot be buried in sacred ground is still believed by many people who live there. But it goes further than that.
There is no doubt that in rural Ireland many people take their own lives and most families in rural Ireland have experienced the pain and, for some, the shame of someone in their family taking their own lives.
Having a suicide in a farming family is much more difficult to deal with than in other rural or urban families.
"When my brother killed himself about two years ago, I could not get a girlfriend. The neighbours were saying that we were not a stable family and therefore could not be trusted to get into a marriage," one young man told me.
"Had we been living in Galway or Cork, there would have been less information about what happened and the entire neighbourhood would not have known," he says.
"But we were in a very tight community and everyone knew every detail about what happened my brother and it cast a shadow over the whole family, including my sisters. There was little understanding that my brother was depressed and mentally ill and he did not seek or get help because there is a stigma attached to being mentally ill in rural Ireland."
Teagasc, the agriculture and food development organisation, has decided to investigate the level of rural suicide in males, something which has not been done before in the State.
That is because it is blatantly obvious that rural males are killing themselves in very large numbers and none of us know why this is happening. But happening it is.
It could well be that people who are predisposed to suicide have the tools. There are guns and ropes and poisons around every farm in Ireland. Having the means to commit suicide is a major factor in the high level of suicide. The deaths of doctors and dentists and farmers have a common link - the ability to do what they decide to do because they have the methods.
But why should farmers be more vulnerable than other rural folk to this problem? What would motivate them to do what they do? The study will focus on the financial pressures farmers now face and the isolation that has grown up in rural Ireland over the past decade.
Thousands of farmers have abandoned the idea of farming full-time for a living and now have part-time jobs on building sites or elsewhere. Those who remain behind farming full-time are on their own.
This means they have less contact with neighbours and the old idea of working together as a meitheal (group working) has died, cutting off social contact with their neighbours.
Farmers no longer go on a daily basis to the creamery to deliver their milk. It is collected by tanker, cutting off yet another social outlet. In addition, the strict anti-drink-driving laws have cut off the traditional outlet for farmers to be with their friends.
Those who work with farmers say that the loss of control on their lives, because decisions have already been made in Brussels or Dublin, is also very important in lowering the self-esteem of farmers.
However, they are anxious to stress that deaths tend to happen only in cases where the victim has been predisposed to self-harm.