LAST Christmas morning, a rural community in a small Kilkenny parish awoke to the tragic tidings that a young mother and her two children had perished in a house fire.

Neighbours saw the flames shooting out from the rented farmhouse outside the village of Windgap at about 8.30am. Sharon Whelan, 30, a single mother, lived there with her children, seven-year-old Zsara and Nadia, who was two. The fire brigade was already on the way but local men broke into the blazing house ahead of them, fighting through the smoke. Sharon's brother, John, remembers getting a telephone call at 8.45am: "It was mam. She just said, the girls are gone, the girls are gone."

Ann and Chris Whelan lived just minutes away in a housing estate at the edge of the village. At that point, the Whelans believed the tragedy was an accident which they blamed on faulty Christmas tree lights. Several days passed before it emerged that they were mourning the victims not of a tragic accident but of murder.

Post-mortem results showed that there was no smoke in Sharon's lungs. She had been strangled and was already dead before the fire started. Her children died of smoke inhalation. Compounding the shock weeks later was the news that the suspected murderer was one their own.

He was Brian Hennessy, a fair-haired man of 23 who was raised in the tiny community of a post office, a school and a pub next door to the yellow-painted parish hall. Even in adulthood, Brian Hennessy didn't stray far from home. He lived with his parents and had recently got himself a steady job as a postman.

Local people said he seemed a quiet, gentle fellow who liked to have a few drinks. But he had never been in trouble. Even gardai were surprised when forensic tests pinpointed him as their prime suspect.

Yet this unassuming man with a clean record and a girlfriend had forced his way into the home of the young mother and, gardai believed, raped and killed her. Even worse was that he sacrificed the lives of her two children in an attempt to cover up his crime.

Although they lived in the same village, Sharon Whelan barely knew Brian Hennessy. Her younger sister, Linda, had once dated Hennessy but that was many years ago.

Sharon had also moved back to Windgap from the neighbouring town of Callan after Nadia was born. She rented the farmhouse as a temporary measure while she waited to be placed on the council's housing list.

"They knew each other to see on the street. But there was no friendship there. He delivered post every now and again to the house. That was probably how he knew she was there on her own with two children in an isolated area," said John Whelan.

Sharon's children were everything to her, according to

her brother. She herself had been fostered as a child by the Whelan family, along with her brother, David and younger sister, Linda.

"Sharon was three and David was four when they came to us. A few months later, Linda came to us. I think that indicates how big a heart my parents have. They couldn't split up that family because the three of them were natural brother and sisters and they didn't have the heart to break them up," he said.

"Overnight we went from a family of two -- myself and Paul -- to a family of five. Looking back on it now, we were all the better for it."

When she moved back from Callan, it was to be close to her foster parents.

"They were an integral part of each other's lives," said John Whelan. "Zsara loved to help everybody. She used to go out with her grandad. He used to look after the hurling pitch, put out flags and mark the pitch when there were games on. She was by his side, holding the flags for him and helping him . . . Nadia was such a lovely kid. She was full of life and mischief. She always had a hug for you. You come in the door and she would throw her arms around you."

On Christmas Eve, Sharon prepared for Santa Claus with assiduous care. Her father, Chris, had presents he wanted to drop off for the children. Sharon insisted that he wait until the children were asleep. At around 10.45pm, the children were finally asleep and the coast clear for their grandfather to bring the gifts. She was careful not to wake the children and made him stop his car at the gate, and turn off the lights and the engine so that the children wouldn't hear him. Sharon went to the gate to collect the gifts and place them beneath the tree.

In contrast, Brian Hennessy was by then still in the throes of a 10-hour drinking session. He had done four straight night shifts in a row at Kilkenny sorting office. He finished up at 8am on Christmas Eve. He had a brief rest, collected the turkey for his mother, and then went on the tear. He started drinking with friends in Kilkenny at 3.30pm and ended up in Guinan's in Windgap.

Hennessy and his sister were among the last to leave when the pub shut after 1am. They strolled home. But Hennessy went out again, claiming to have left his jacket in the pub. He did not return until 7am. His mother let him in because he lost his key. He made up an excuse about sleeping in a friend's house. He went to bed shortly before the village awoke to the tragedy he had wreaked on the family and the community.

The sham of the accidental fire was exposed after a week. Forensic fire investigators found that two fires had been set in the house. Further tests by State pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy revealed startling findings about Sharon.

Marks on her neck were consistent with strangulation. Several small neck bones were broken. Her knees were bruised and scraped. Her left cheek was bruised, as though something had hit her hard on the face. Her genital area was torn and bruised and suggested "violent sex", the State pathologist later said. The presence of semen provided the crucial DNA.

There were no apparent suspects. Detectives found that other than the relationship she had had with the fathers of her two children, there were no men in her life. She lived quietly, and didn't often socialise, spending her modest income on her children rather than on herself.

Detectives assembled a list of every man who had visited Sharon's home, from relatives to delivery men, her father and large extended family. In all, more than 80 local men were swabbed for DNA.

But with nothing untoward in his past, gardai regarded Brian Hennessy as someone to be eliminated from their inquiries rather than a potential suspect. He only came into the frame because he had delivered post to Sharon's house in the past.

The DNA test proved otherwise. Three weeks after the tragedy, Hennessy was arrested. Initially he tried to stick to a self-serving invention that he was Sharon's lover.

He claimed that Sharon had invited him to call up to her sometime, which he did at 2am on Christmas morning. They talked, before going to the bedroom she shared with her daughters where they had "quiet, consensual" sex.

Gardai didn't believe him. They believed that Hennessy, full of drink, volatile and violent, walked to Sharon Whelan's house with the intent of having sex. They believe that Sharon would never have let him into the house. It was not in her character nor was there was a scrap of evidence -- telephone records or otherwise -- to suggest that they knew each other. They were, at best, barely acquainted.

When gardai put to him that he raped Sharon and then killed her and her children after she threatened to report him, he denied the rape. But he confessed to killing her because -- he claimed -- she threatened to tell people about their liaison.

"I sat on the bed. I didn't know what to do. I saw the kids. It made me more sad that I'd taken their mother away on Christmas," he said. "I never thought about the children. I was worried about the murder."

Despite the confession, Brian Hennessy pleaded not guilty until the eleventh hour, changing his plea as his trial was about to open at the Central Criminal Court. Judge Barry White said he had added to the suffering of the Whelan family.

By the time Brian Hennessy was sentenced to three life terms in jail at the Central Criminal Court last week, Sharon's parents, Chris and Ann Whelan, had already made their peace with the family of their daughter and granddaughters' murderer.

"Our family and the Hennessy family have made their peace with each other . . . When it all came out about what had happened, what he had done, we sat down as a family and talked about this. We all to a person came to the conclusion that we can't hold any grudge against the Hennessy family. How were they to know what he was going to do?" said John Whelan.

The compassion does not extend to Brian Hennessy. Gardai believe he lied to the end about a drunken rampage that ended in evil and senseless slaughter.

"The way we are looking at it is, he went down that road that night for one thing and one thing only. He went down that road, uninvited and unannounced, and there is no way Sharon would have voluntarily let him in.

"Our families wish that he will serve every day of his sentence. We are going to serve every day of ours," said John.

Sunday Independent