Yeah I understand this struggle. It's a very weird and troubling one and some of the possible reasons or answers seem unpalatable.Diamonds of Frost wrote: ↑Fri Jan 14, 2022 9:40 pm I'm trying to figure things out in my head. My heart breaks for Ashling and her family. There was a young lad shot in Ballyfermot this week and his death doesn't have the same impact on me and I don't understand why.
Reasons such as a sudden crime against youth and beauty seeming more shocking or devastating on an almost mythic level to our hopes and fears.
There have been several women killed lately, such as poor Urantsetseg Tserendorj, stabbed on her way home from work. While we were all horrified it did not strike as loud a chord in the public consciousness.
Another man lies dead this morning in a lane in Buncrana, there is the Dublin father you mention, even the woman burned in her car in Cork last year - these did not bring people to the streets.
I don't know the reasons some crimes shock more. Robert Holohan shocked too, though male it was his youth. And I suppose there is an added element of shock when a crime could partake of the atavistic fear in us all of some unleashed sexual frenzy.
But it is undoubtedly troubling to realise that there is a hierarchy of shock and emotional response because it shows we are not rational beings.