No heart can have been unmoved by the tragic deaths of Niall and Tisha Murphy, the young brother and sister who drowned on Thursday of last week off a Co Mayo beach where they had been swimming. The tragedy of the children's deaths was heightened by the incongruous beauty of the location - Tra Mor Beach - by the tranquility of the sea and the blue sky, by the sunshine of the summer's day. The deepest sympathy must be extended to the bereaved Murphy family in their terrible loss.
Emergency and rescue personnel came swiftly to the scene but too late. Local media arrived some time afterwards to discharge their necessary task. At some point, press photographer Keith Heneghan found himself among a group of distressed young people on rising ground above the beach. A young child pointed out Niall Murphy's shoes and clothes, folded on the grass. Mr Heneghan recognised the poignancy of the image against the tranquility of the sea and sky and photographed it.
The publication of that photograph in The Irish Times last Friday brought a flood of complaints from readers, of which a representative sample has been published in the letters columns over recent days. "Insensitive", "voyeuristic", "heartless", "ruthless" - are among the adjectives which have been used.
Even careful and serious newspapers sometimes get the balance of things wrong. Clearly, in the opinion of many readers of The Irish Times we did so on this occasion. But the newspaper will have to differ from the judgment of some of its readers here. Newspapers have a duty to present the unpalatable as well as the pleasant, the shocking as well as the reassuring, the disquieting as well as the affirming.
The decision to publish the photograph was a considered one. That it reached and touched deeply elemental fears in parents and others is undeniable. It did so in a way that other reports of other drownings did not. But if its publication results in greater vigilance and caution, if one child is alive at the end of this summer who might otherwise be dead, it will have been justified. One member of the rescue services described the photograph as "compassionate, shocking - and a warning, given the beautiful sea conditions." The Irish Times did not set out to cause hurt - and if it did so that is, of course, regretted. It sought to remind readers - forcefully - that the sea is an unpredictable and terrible, if beautiful, element.