MARIA Barnard carries the heavy burden of her son’s death all day, every day.
For the Dungannon woman there is no escape from the sudden tragedy that fell on her family almost a year ago.
Her 17-year-old son Morgan was one of three teenagers who died as they queued to get into a disco at the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown on St Patrick’s night last year.
Two other teens, Lauren Bullock (17) and 16-year-old Connor Currie, also lost their lives.
Since the terrible tragedy, questions have been raised about the circumstances and police response.
The fight for those answers can be fought another day.
Tonight, in the kitchen of her home the 39-year-old just wants to talk about her son - her second born and best friend.
Morgan’s father James Bradley (44) sits beside her at the table in their love-filled family home.
Ordinary people caught in the grip of extraordinary pain and loss.
For the last 12 months their home has been steeped in unbearable sorrow.
But despite the weight of loss, colour filters into every room.
And Morgan is everywhere - his now familiar face dominates almost every room.
“People say ‘someone is too good for this world’," Maria said.
“Morgan was too good. He wasn’t a typical teenager, he was different.”
The grieving mother’s face lights up as she describes her son.
“We knew he was popular we just didn't realise how popular,” she said.
“He was such good craic. He was great fun to be around. You couldn't have taken the hand out of him because he would have taken the hand out of himself rather than let you get one over.
“He was a good lad but great craic, great craic and so funny.”
She described how the teen never held a grudge.
“I am not a morning person and I would be ‘don’t talk to me, don’t look at me, don’t breathe on me’ and he would get up singing and I’d be like ‘why is he so happy first thing in the morning’.
“He was always chirpy, cheery and happy. He never held grudges, he never fell out with you.”
Morgan would have sat his A-Levels this year and just weeks before he died filled out his driving licence application form but never got the chance to post it.
“He would have been going to university in September, he was so looking forward to university and he was so looking forward to driving,” she said.
“He had such a great zest for doing, he wanted to do stuff, he wasn’t a lazy teenager.”
The teenager overcame all obstacles and had positive outlook on life.
“He was so unlucky but it was his attitude to it,” his mother said.
“He would have had an excuse to be a negative person because he was so unlucky.
“He had braces, he had glasses, he broke his front teeth.
“He always had a golf ball on his head when he was younger, tripping and falling. He was so clumsy. He used to say mammy 'I am so clumsy'.
“But he was so positive, anybody else would have been 'Oh my God'. He was so happy and so appreciative of everything.”
The emotional toll of losing her son is constantly to the fore.
“I used to think to myself ‘how can you think of somebody all the time?’ before all this happened to me.
“It’s so true, every second of the day I am constantly thinking about Morgan.
“It’s so exhausting sometimes because your brain is mentally exhausted.”
When Morgan died his mother was pregnant and later gave birth to little Laurcon Morgan - named after the big brother he never got the chance to meet.
The teenager also left behind his older brother Calvin (21) and three sisters Robyn (5), Reagan (4) and Elyssa (3).
Maria reveals how his death has had an impact on her other children and reveals that her eldest daughter went through a “terrible time”.
“Robyn was affected badly by it,” she said.
“We were telling her Morgan is an angel and he is up in heaven.
“She kept asking questions ‘why can he not come down’ and ‘I want to give him a hug’ and ‘I miss him’.”
Maria says that eventually her daughter was told the sad truth.
“She looked at me and said ‘but has he died for ever?’,” Maria said.
“She cried for a solid hour, she sobbed her heart out for an hour.
“I felt awful because I didn’t want to tell her the truth because I didn’t want this but I was advised that this is the best thing.
“From I told her that all the questions have stopped.”
Morgan’s devastated dad James spoke of how the teenager doted on his little sisters.
“The children loved to see him,” he said.
“When he arrived home it was equally like me arriving home, there's daddy, but there's Morgan. They loved to see him.
“He would have spent time going around every one of them lifting them,” he said.
Morgan’s love of the Irish language was well known and he enjoyed nothing more than to escape to the Gaeltacht every year.
Last week St Patrick’s Academy in Dugannon, which Morgan attended, presented his parents with a special certificate in Irish.
“It was good of them to invite us, he is part of the fabric of that school,” he said.
“He is missed so much.”
After his death the teenager was awarded a coveted gold fáinne, a badge worn by fluent Irish speakers.
“He has his gold fáinne,” James said.
“The head of Irish came to the wake and he said to me that he had no doubt. Morgan would have earned his gold fáinne and for that reason he put his hand in his pocket and he gave me a gold fáinne.”
The devastated couple placed the prized pin on Morgan before his funeral.
“The last thing we did, me and Maria - we were the last ones in the room upstairs - we pinned it on him.
“He had a Gaelic academy top on, with the academy crest on it and me and Maria pinned the fáinne here on him.
“It was the last thing we done.”
The talented teenager helped with the language around home and was labelled “the teacher” by his father.
The heartbroken dad revealed how his daughters shout “goodnight Morgan” every night at bedtime and in their innocence call out his name as they play on their trampoline.
He also revealed how Morgan’s older brother Calvin has coped with the loss.
“The relationship was turning from sibling rivalry to brothers as young men,” he said.
“We could see that relationship developing in front of our eyes - the sibling rivalry was going away.”
Having a keen interest in sport, Morgan had travelled with his father to Old Trafford in Manchester and the Nou Camp in Barcelona along with a host of other destinations.
The teenager took a genuine interest in the welfare of others.
“He didn't just pass you by like a lot of people do, including myself,” his father said.
“Morgan took the time to listen to you.”
With a flair for business, even at an early age his father recalls how the teenager often asked for jobs to do in order to make some cash.
“He used to sell, sweets in school,” he said.
“You weren’t allowed to do it in the academy. We got pulled up about it. He done it on the quiet and kept doing it.
“It was about being an entrepreneur – he wanted to know how to make the money.
“It wasn’t just about getting money in, he wanted to know the right way of how to set a base and build something to make a profit.
“He had it up there and I just know he would have made it, whatever he decided to do in the end.”
James revealed how he travelled to Craigavon Area Hospital on the night of the tragedy in silence along with his wife as the tragedy unfolded.
“When Maria ran past the police the cop stopped me, when that cop stood out and stopped in front of me I knew there and then that this is bad,” he said.
“And he just marched me in and he said I need you to identify somebody. It could be your son or possibly your son.
“Just walking into that room and seeing a sparkle of life that he was – it's so difficult to explain, you know, a lifeless child lying.
“You still want to help him but it’s over. You know, how do you get on with life when that spark is lying (there).
“I couldn’t take it in.”
James explained how he struggled to accept the lifeless body in front of him was his son.
“I kept saying it’s not him and there he is with the braces,” he said.
“He had no glasses on because they were smashed, they weren't on him.
“I ripped the blankets clean off him because he used to walk about in his boxers around the house.
“I saw his boxers. I remember that hitting really hard to me.
“When I saw his boxers because he just didn't look the same, you know, the spark, a spark had died.
“A star had disappeared. And a really, really massive presence in this house is gone for ever.”
James said the trauma of losing his son is unlikely to be matched in his lifetime.
“It’s the hardest thing, without fear of contradiction that I will ever face,” he said.
“I would safely say the same for Maria.”
His son’s death has left a massive hole in his family.
“I know people say and it’s a cliché, 'there's something missing'.
“There really is, there really is in this family. There is a massive part stolen away from us. I can’t emphasise how massive his presence was around us. You close your eyes and think ‘is this real'.”
:: A specially made banner paying tribute to the three teenagers which was due to be carried in a cancelled St Patrick’s Day parade in Dungannon will now be put on display on a fence at Morgan’s home on March 17.
