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The family of Clodagh Hawe say they are haunted by not still knowing why her monster husband Alan killed her and her three sons.

In a lengthy murder/suicide letter, the killer twice urged family members to contact his counsellor to get the additional information than he could not write about.

But today Mary Coll and Jacqueline Connolly, Clodagh’s mother and sister, still do not have the answers to their question: “Why did Hawe kill Clodagh, Liam, Niall and Ryan?”

Referring to his shame, Hawe wrote: “I certainly wasn’t abusing anyone. I just don’t know what I was.

“I wish I’d never darkened [Clodagh’s] life but there was always something wrong with me.”

Fearing his life was unravelling with dark secrets about to be exposed, the 40-year-old murdered Clodagh, 39, and her children, Liam, 13, Niall, 11, and six-year-old Ryan in August 2016 before hanging himself in their Co Cavan home.

(Image: RTE)

It has been established Hawe had been:

Dressing up in his wife’s underwear and clothes,

Accessing on-line porn on a school computer and phone, and

Browsing Russian dating sites.

But it is believed Hawe had another even darker secret which has never been revealed to those mourning his murder victims.

Despite one of his last wishes was that “family” should get “the rest” of the information from his counsellor, the details have still not been released.

Clodagh’s family believe the truth behind the multiple murders may lie in those details.

Jacqueline said: “Hawe said he was leading them to a life of ruin and Clodagh would have to clean up his mess. We still don’t know what that mess is.

“He said the truth was going to come out sometime, we don’t know what that truth is.

“We never found out why and we were advised that it probably would never happen at the inquest.

“But he said in his own words he was caught red-handed and we know that he was looking at pornography on the school laptop and he never brought the school laptop home.

“We’ve had sight of the counselling notes and he had said he was masturbating somewhere he shouldn’t have been, possibly school.

“So we have pieces of information but we don’t know who caught him. We don’t know why he was ringing the INTO, whether it was for advice for a grievance. We don’t know where it happened, when it happened.

“We do know, in the June, he cancelled all his counselling sessions and this all happened the day before he was to return to school so it was avoidance of the consequences he was about to face.”

Mary added: “He said it was easier for them to die than to have to live with the truth of what he was doing.

“We do know now that we didn’t at the time he was dressing in Clodagh’s underwear.

“She would never ever in her wildest dreams have thought of that, none of us would.

(Image: list agencies)

“We only found that out after the inquest. He said, ‘When I go back to school it will all blow up’. If he was masturbating in the school well at the very least he was guilty of professional misconduct.

“We miss them so much. They should still be alive, living their lives.

“He had the illusion that they couldn’t manage their lives without him. That’s that was how important he thought he was.

“Clodagh was a professional woman, she was assertive, she had three lovely healthy children.

“It would’ve been hard but they would’ve survived and we would’ve helped them. Life wouldn’t have been the same again certainly but children grow up and they live their own lives.”

(Image: PA)

Jacqueline said: “We don’t know why, after a full investigation we’re left with these questions.

“We’ve requested the files from the gardai and they’ve declined.

“But we feel an injustice has been done to Clodagh and the boys.

“She was sitting on the couch looking up holidays on her laptop and the boys were innocently asleep. They shouldn’t have died like that.

“We need the truth. We need to know why they died, out of respect for them but to be able to have some peace of mind. We need answers.”

Until August 2016, Hawe, was considered by most, to be a respectable, clean living, deeply religious husband and father with a steady career as the deputy head teacher at Castlerahan National School, near his home in Co Cavan. That respectability was a facade perfected over years, his work-a-day life pitted with passive aggression, lies and pretence.

His act cemented the creation of a fake personality that hid deep-seated perversions, secrets and a deadly black heart.

In June 2016 Hawe’s lies started to unravel when he was caught “red handed” – believed to have been in the school where he taught.

He had been viewing pornography on a school computer. In the last year of his life Hawe accessed 97% of it on his school laptop and some on his phone - hiding the truth from Clodagh.

And it is believed he was caught viewing questionable sites inside the school.

It has been established that he didn’t go to the school out of hours and was the only male teacher in the school.

Hawe never brought the school computer home and had sole use of an adult male-only bathroom. Mary said: “In February 2016, Clodagh rang me one evening and she said, ‘Can I talk to you?’

“She came in and she said to me, ‘You know Alan has been watching porn. He has told me this’.

“I think he used to do it and then he’d feel guilty and ease his conscience and maybe to get her permission or whatever. But I know that it was affecting their relationship.

“He started going to counselling every Tuesday night. I’d say to Clodagh, ‘Is everything OK?’ and she’d say, ‘It’s OK mam. If there’s anything, you know, I’ll tell you’.

“But I would know by Clodagh’s expression, by her body language, if she was upset or annoyed and everything seemed to go back and he would come along with her and there was no bad feeling.

“So he was going to counselling and then an issue arose in the school so his counselling sessions went from dealing with his porn addiction to his issues at school.”

But when he was caught “red handed” Hawe’s world tumbled into a dangerous spiral.

Counselling about his marriage escalated to talks about his sexual proclivities, secrets and shame.

In his murder/suicide letter, he wrote: “Clodagh and I were never going to come back from this and I was leaving some mess for her to clean up. No one deserves that crap.”

In the letter are other references to the “mess” he has created. He wrote:

People were going to cop on.

The boys and Clodagh did not deserve to have to put up with that.

The truth would have come out probably some time, and

Nobody ever made me this way.

Anyone affected by issues raised in this article can contact:

Samaritans on 116 123

Pieta House on 1800 247 247

Childline on 1800 66 66 66, or text "support" to 50101

Women's Aid on 1800 341 900

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