Beside the complimentary tea and porridge stalls at the end of Phoenix Park’s Darkness into Light route in Dublin, Claire Power remembers her best friend, who took her own life three years ago.
“Her birthday was actually yesterday,” Power says. “Her name was Eleanor and I do this every year as a tribute to her. She was a great person and I almost feel like she’s here with me on the walk.”
It is 5.30am, and Power has been walking a 5km trail alongside her sister Grace for the past hour and a quarter. When crowds first gathered on Chesterfield Avenue even earlier on Saturday morning, they were lit by phone torches, fairy lights and the flashing blue beacons of Garda cars. Now, though the sky is cloudy, sunlight has poked through.
“It’s beautiful,” Power says of the walk. “The first year we done it, I got quite emotional. I cried. I’m kind of managing better now doing it. I’m able to find more comfort in it. I always think of her obviously when I do it, and I think of other people – of suicide in general.”
RM Block
About 5,000 people registered for the Phoenix Park walk, but organisers said they expect the attendance to be closer to 10,000. This is the largest of the 150-plus official Darkness into Light events taking place around Ireland on Saturday, each raising money for suicide-prevention and self-harm prevention charity Pieta.
Many of the walkers are in the same boat as Power, remembering loved ones they have lost to suicide. Jean Treacy and her friend Mary O’Brien have been attending Darkness into Light for the past decade or so. They would usually have more of a crowd, but today it is just the two of them.
“It brings people together and highlights the very difficult problem that we have in Ireland. It’s becoming more and more apparent now. Very young people are taking their own lives way too soon,” Treacy says.
Treacy says the pace and competitiveness of modern life can be too much for vulnerable people. “It just gets harder for them,” she says. “The awareness is fantastic but we need a lot more help.”
Both she and O’Brien are wearing yellow T-shirts provided by Pieta to commemorate the walk, constituting a uniform sported by large swathes of the crowd. Some attendees have fashioned their own shirts featuring pictures and details of the people they have lost.
For all the poignancy of the occasion, Darkness into Light is a joyful event, full of laughter and conversation. Many walkers have dogs or small children by their side, and a pair of gospel choirs are stationed along the path to lift spirits.
One man, who does not want to share his name, says his son’s experience was the driver for his attendance. “He was definitely in that dark space, if you like,” he explains. “Thankfully he’s come through it, come out the other side of it, and that’s what you want.”
“It’s very uplifting,” he says of Darkness into Light. “We probably will continue to do it now every year. It’s hope, isn’t it really? It’s an epidemic in a way, the people that are suffering. You feel like a lot of people, if there was the right help and interception, they could be [helped].”
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