Twisted killer who stabbed wife and children to death before killing himself described as 'evil' by funeral priest

A twisted killer who knifed his wife and children to death before killing himself has been described as "evil" by the priest who buried him

Alan Hawe, 41,shared a funeral with his wife Clodagh and their children Liam, 13, Niall, 11, and Ryan, six, after he stabbed them all in their house in rural Ireland.

Father Felim Kelly, who laid the family to rest addressed a memory mass in their honour, reports the Irish Mirror .

He told the congregation of St Mary’s Church in the small rural community outside Ballyjamesduff: “What Alan did was evil, there’s no denying that.”

Hawe, 41, a deputy principal at Castlerahan national school in Co Cavan, murdered his family in a frenzied knife and hatchet attack some time between Sunday August 29 and the following morning.

Friends and relatives of respected teacher Clodagh, 31, and her sons attended the service alongside locals and prayed for the family whose murders shocked the nation.

Fr Kelly, a pal of Hawe for some years, had initially described at the funeral service last month how he had spent Christmas with the family - and he painted a perfectly harmonious picture.

He said: “I knew I was calling to see close friends and knew the welcome, Clodagh with her scones, red jam and mug of coffee.

Liam, Niall and Ryan busy like budding engineers building all kinds of Lego.

“And Alan standing with his back to the kitchen sink totally at ease enjoying the bean an ti [woman of the house] and the antics of unsoiled and respectful sons.”

But a family friend said yesterday that the mood regarding Alan Hawe had shifted considerably as the reality of his actions finally had time to sink in and the priest’s words at the mass reflected the change.

The friend said: “The Memory Mass was important to everyone and it was a relief to hear the priest describe the actions on that poor family as evil.

"What was done to them was evil and no one should forget that. Clodagh and Liam and Niall and little Ryan should be alive today and they’re not because of the evil actions of their father.”

It is understood four days after the massacre in the family home Fr Kelly had been in instrumental in the decision to have the victims buried with their killer.

He had also urged people to forgive killer Hawe.

A friend said: “We will never know if there has been more time to make a decision, if the same decision would have been made to bury them in a family plot.

“How could anyone make a decision like that with any logic or sense when the bottom has just dropped out of their world?

"The whole community was shocked, imagine what the family were trying to make sense of in their grief?

“Clodagh and the boys will always be in our hearts.

"We will continue to pray for Clodagh, talk about her, remember her and her love for her sons and her loving family.

"Her goodness will always be remembered, along with her wonderful boys.”