Cork woman Christine Kavanagh is grieving the loss of a child for the third time. The body of her son Damien is set to be returned home to Ireland after he died in Wales yesterday.
The 36-year-old was found in his flat on Wednesday. Damien, who was originally from Gurranabraher, had moved to Wales in 2019 for a ‘fresh start’ after struggling with drugs while living in Cork.
Tragically, Christine has already grieved for two of her sons. In 2016, her 31-year-old son Ross died after a collapse believed to be associated with epilepsy.
Just five years later her son Leon, also 31, passed away.
Christine said: “I don’t think I could take any more.
“My heart is broken,” she said, speaking to the Neil Prendeville Show on Cork’s RedFM, “Our world has ended. Our hearts are crushed.”
Christine shared memories of Damien’s life and his move to Wales: “He got clean, everything going for him, got a beautiful apartment.”
Sadly Christine never got a chance to visit Damien in his new life in Wales – though she had plans to see him this month “I’d always be saying, Damien, I will come over. He’d be saying, Mam, you always say that.”
Now Damien’s body will be repatriated to Cork with the help of the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust (KBRT), a charity dedicated to assisting Irish families after the deaths of loved ones abroad.
Christine spoke to Damien not long before his death: “I was onto him the week of Christmas and I said, Damien, I got Botox – and he said, Mam, you’re 65. And he was laughing.”
Christine’s fourth son Dylan has struggled with drugs too and recently survived an overdose. When Christine received a phone call informing her of Damien’s death yesterday, she initially believed it must have been Dylan who had passed away: “I thought they’d got the names mixed up.”
Her son Leon struggled with similar issues as well as homelessness. At one point Christine paused to give him money in the street and he failed to recognise her.
Damien meanwhile made progress from heroin to methadone and got clean from drugs, and Christine said he was “flying it” in Wales. She said: “Damien did so well over there.”
The cause of Damien’s death has not yet been confirmed.
Before his death, Damien told Christine that she was “the strongest woman” in the face of all her personal tragedy. Christine said that she wanted to “thank everyone” who has shown support following Damien’s death.
Colin Bell, who runs KBRT with a team of volunteers, said “we will be able to get [Christine’s] son home, certainly. That’s what we’re here for.”
KBRT was set up in 2013 after Colin’s son Kevin Bell was killed in a suspected hit-and-run in New York. Since then the trust has repatriated the remains of 2,035 Irish people. Colin explained that the trust is currently working on up to eight repatriations from across the globe.
In 2024 the charity carried out 297 repatriations. One of those took place last July, when thousands were raised for KBRT after it helped bring home the body of Cork father Johnny O’Connor following his death in Greece.
You can donate to the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust here: kbrtrust.com/donations/