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Shane Clancy had been taking antidepressants for one week before he carried out a murder-homicide in Bray, Co Wicklow, 14 days ago. He had told friends he "didn't like how they made him feel" but continued to take them, the Sunday Tribune understands.
No one other than Clancy knows what drove him to kill Sebastian Creane before turning the knife on himself. It is known he was jealous that the young man had begun dating his former girlfriend, Jennifer Hannigan – who he also tried to kill along with Creane's older brother Dylan before stabbing himself fatally in the back garden of the Creane family home.
An inquest into the death of the young Trinity student may provide some answers.
Depending on whether Clancy's parents have concerns over the effects the antidepressants were having on him, the debate over whether antidepressants can spur suicidal and homicidal thoughts – which has led to legal actions in the US – may be broached at the inquest, with expert witnesses called.
The Sunday Tribune visited five GPs in last week and reported feeling depressed. Four out of the five prescribed antidepressant medication, despite the fact it was a first-time visit to each surgery and no counselling had been undertaken.
Two leading psychiatrists have said they would not have prescribed me antidepressants and simple counselling would most likely have sufficed to solve the symptoms described.
"If you'd come to me with that story of being depressed over the break-up of a relationship and losing your job, I would not have prescribed antidepressants," said Patricia Casey, professor of psychiatry at the Mater Hospital and University College Dublin.
"I think we prescribe antidepressants far too easily in this country. It's not the GPs fault: they did not act improperly by prescribing you antidepressants; you fulfilled the criteria of being depressed.
"The problem is definition of depression is far too broad. When people go to their GP and say they're not eating, sleeping or are unhappy because of a broken heart, they can get antidepressants. Technically, these people meet the criteria for major depression."
Casey (above, left in picture) said some people can experience "unpleasant side-effects" from antidepressants, such as increased agitation and anxiety.
Dr Michael Corry, a psychiatrist in private practice in Dublin and founder of 'Depression Dialogues', said he would not have prescribed me with antidepressants.
"They are the new Valium. If someone has a setback and says they feel depressed, they can get these pills very easily.
"The problem is that when people take these chemicals into their body, they can often feel strange in their minds.
"I have had clients say to me that in the first three to seven days, they feel totally out of character and worse than before.
"Side-effects can be patients wanting to self-harm, commit suicide and harm others."
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It is clearly both illogical and unscientific to suggest that life problems can be solved by chemical means. On this morning Pat Kenny’s radio show a psychiatrist was advocating the use of antidepressant drugs though he admitted that nobody knew how these drugs interact with the brain. Suffering and pain are an inevitable part of living. Pain serves a useful function. It tells us, for example, that one should take ones hand out of the fire and keep it out. Depression gives depth to the soul. As the poet John Keats wrote, ‘Call this world if you please the valley of soul making’. Antidepressant drugs are the soma of the modern world.
We live in an unjust world. Instead of fighting against injustice people are numbing, stultifying and disabling themselves and thus rendering themselves incapable of fighting against the forces oppressing them. That is happening at both the political and personal level. At the personal level people who, for example, are being bullied at work are being prescribed antidepressants instead of being encouraged and helped to fight against the bullying. Four years ago a colleague of mine who was being bullied at work died in a most horrendous manner by pouring petrol over herself and setting fire to herself in her car. She had been on antidepressant drugs. There have been numerous cases of suicides and homicides by people on antidepressant drugs. The Bray tragedy is only one of many. Unfortunately, there will be many more because at a political level it suits the powerful that the victims are ‘somatised’ rather than fighting them.