Perhaps the most unctuous was Friday's leader in the Irish Examiner, which quickly sought to locate this tragedy in the unfolding Grand CounterNarrative to the Celtic Tiger, in which the "Ireland that was once noted for its caring and Christian ethos" was obliterated in the face of "the relentless pressures of modern life", setting the stage for not just this horror, but others, in the face of failure to hire more social workers for the elderly.

Except to note that Christian-ethos Ireland was quite selective when it decided who was worthy of the caring attention its resources could provide, let us leave that contention for a moment and reckon what we do know.

We do know that Evelyn, a 59-year-old woman, was discovered severely malnourished and dehydrated, with horrific bedsores, lying in soiled clothes. We know she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

We also know that Evelyn had been estranged from several of her siblings, a split that reportedly followed a marriage to her first cousin that had produced two children. She had reportedly been in infrequent contact with her son, but moved into the recently-built home of her daughter Eleanor and her partner.

We know that after the dead woman's siblings held a press conference on Thursday night, and press reports made it clear that Eleanor was being lined up as the villain of the piece, alleging amongst other things that she wasn't sad at her mother's funeral and was planning on leaving her house, Eleanor broke her silence on RTE's Liveline.

She said she was "very tempted" to call social services to get help for her mother, who hadn't left her room except to bathe since September 2005, but that her mother had said, "No leave it alone, I don't want help, I don't want to go to a nursing home, I don't want to see doctors, I don't want nothing, or nobody."

Eleanor gave an interview to gardai on Thursday. The Health Service Executive is conducting a separate inquiry.

We don't know what those inquiries will reveal.

We don't know, for example, the details of her medical care. We don't know when Evelyn Joel was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, what symptoms she suffered, whether that diagnosis was accurate, and what, if anything, Evelyn and her family knew about what might be happening to her body.

One thing that could have usefully informed the press coverage this week would have been some coverage about multiple sclerosis (MS), the disease which, it's been reported since last weekend, Evelyn suffered from. I am not a doctor or a qualified expert on the subject, but my mother has suffered for nearly 40 years with a degenerative nerve disease that for years was diagnosed as MS. She is now roughly the same age as Evelyn Joel would be.

She finds it increasingly difficult to get around. My father is her full-time caregiver.

Some 6,000 people in Ireland suffer from MS, according to the support group MS Ireland. Most can lead quite normal lives for many years. Roughly 10% of cases result in death; but less than 1% of deaths are attributed directly to the disease. Most are attributed to "complications from MS".

The most common complications?

Malnutrition and dehydration and pneumonia. Often this is because it becomes difficult, then impossible, to swallow.

Without care, food and liquid can then enter the lungs, causing pneumonia and further infections.

Perhaps not surprisingly, depression is not uncommon in MS patients, particularly if the disease is approaching an advanced stage. Suicidal thoughts can develop, sometimes suicide attempts.

In the days even before the gardai spoke with Eleanor about her mother's situation, there was precious little restraint shown in the media at drawing conclusions about larger social and political issues. Even Mary Harney, responding to questions implying that her department must somehow be responsible for this situation, said, "It's obviously appalling neglect."

She added, "The state has to ensure that where possible we have vigorous processes in place to make sure something like this couldn't happen again."

That the Minister for Health would feel she needed to make such a grandiose and impossible promise, that Eleanor Joel felt compelled to put "her side of the story" across on national radio, is more a reflection of the mediadriven public demand for a villain to be identified, instantly, in every tragedy.

We may never know what really happened. But I know one thing: a family tragedy like this is never so simple as to comfortably fit into 850 words.