A CO Down actor who has appeared in TV crime dramas including The Fall and Marcella has penned a poem in memory of Noah Donohoe.
Eugene O'Hare, who is from Newry and who is also a well known playwright, said he wrote the poem because the death of the schoolboy last June had "blasted an extraordinary grief into... the consciousness of people across Ireland and beyond, and into the heart of a mother whose life has been savaged by tragedy but who is bravely fighting for answers to explain it.
"Sometimes a piece of writing quietly appears rather than engineers itself as a response to tragedy," he said.
"But it exists as another voice bearing witness - sometimes the most vital voices of all."
Noah Donohoe by Eugene O'Hare
missing boy, found boy,
boy playing a guitar on Mother’s Day,
boy of 14, of moonround eyes,
boy riding his Apollo bike to Cave Hill,
boy who died in the city who wears her grief like skin,
city who knows how to grieve and always will.
missing boy, found boy,
boy of Fiona,
boy-nephew of Niamh & Shona,
boy of June 21st; the day of the missing day,
the day of the saddest day,
the day of the journey day,
Skegoneill Avenue, something beyond.
loved boy, boy of love
who was told by his mother he would change the world
and so he changed the world.
loved boy, doted boy,
boy who taught his schoolmates
the weight of sorrow but how to hold it
like a pencil drawing tiny heathers, bilberries,
cowberries from the Sperrins of County Tyrone.
missing boy, found boy,
boy who loved Rod Stewart’s Forever Young,
boy who surfs wind-curls over Divis ridge.
boy in the basketball, boy in the blue balloon,
boy who plays the cello when the grieving city sleeps.
