The gunshot heard around the world
The shocking death of the scion of a famous tiling dynasty mirrors the painful demise of the Celtic Tiger, writes Maeve Sheehan
Sunday January 25 2009
SUNDAY in leafy Castleknock. Families cram local restaurants offering recession-friendly menus. Pubs hum with punters watching the latest sports fixtures on big screens.
The next morning, Annette set off on the school run with the boys. She got home at around 8.45am. She found her husband lying in the garden, a gun shot wound to his head, the weapon by his side. Neighbours reportedly saw him pacing outside in his pyjamas shortly before hearing the gun shot. The former Olympic athlete Eamon Coghlan, who lives on the same road, was among those who rushed to the aid of Annette Rocca.
Within hours, the death of this poster boy for the Celtic Tiger became inextricably linked to his decimated fortune. The grandson of an Italian tiling entrepreneur, he sold the tiling business for €12m several years ago. He ploughed €300m through his property firm, Accorp, into prime developments across the UK, including €100m of his personal fortune on a distribution centre for retailer Argos. He was reputed to have invested heavily in the stock market.
Mr Rocca enjoyed the spoils, living life large. He famously picked up Uri Geller in his "colossal" twin-engine Sikorsky helicopter, and flew him over Lansdowne Road as Ireland played Switzerland during a World Cup qualifier, so that the psychic could send out positive vibes to the home team. He flew Bill Clinton around Irish golf courses and entertained moguls such as Sir Alan Sugar at his villa in Marbella. His sister, Michelle, is the partner of Van Morrison, the musician.
The credit crunch hit Mr Rocca's fortune hard. He began the new year with hundreds of millions wiped off the value of his property empire, and nursing stock market losses.
At his funeral Mass in St Mochta's church in Porterstown on Wednesday, Fr John Daly reminded mourners: "All of us here are aware of the tragic circumstances that bring us here today, but I am not going to dwell on them." Instead, he singled out the Castleknock Celtic soccer club and the local scouting organisation which were among the many local clubs that benefited from his generous support.
Patrick Rocca will be remembered by his family as a loving husband, father, sibling and friend. But as a poster boy of the Celtic Tiger, his death has come to epitomise its spectacular demise. CNBC, the US cable news channel, declared Patrick Rocca the first high-profile victim of Ireland's financial crisis. The New York Times cited his death as an example of the steep personal toll of global recession. He joined the annals of other mega-rich financiers who killed themselves in the face of financial ruin.
Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, a fund manager who lost $1.4bn of clients' funds by investing with Bernard L Madoff, committed suicide before Christmas at his office in Manhattan. The German financier Adolf Merckle threw himself under a train earlier this month. He had lost up to €400m in a failed speculative shares investment in Volkswagen. The same week, Steven Good, director of a Chicago real estate firm, shot himself in a forest.
According to the experts, the past 100 years of booms and busts have raised the sad truth that, in times of recession, suicides invariably increase. According to Ella Arensman, director of research at the National Suicide Research Foundation, financial crises are generally not the cause of suicide but the trigger, in people who may already be vulnerable to anxiety or depression.
Last November, Dan Neville, the Fine Gael TD who has long championed the cause of suicide prevention, stood up in the Dail and warned the Government of the impact of recession, redundancies and financial difficulties on the nation's mental health.
"It must also put in place suicide-prevention programmes to minimise the outcome from the downturn. Not to do so is ignoring a crucial need brought on by the serious mistakes which have caused this disastrous economic situation," he said.
That same month, a young barrister from Kildare said goodbye to his colleagues after putting in a morning's work at Naas court house, returned home and took his own life.
An inquest into his death will be held in the coming months. The barrister was just 33 years old, newly married and embarking on a promising legal career. He also was understood to have financial troubles. Judge Desmond Zaidan described his death as a "terrible tragedy and loss of life" and suspended the court sittings.
In December, Jack Marry, one of Ireland's most successful pig farmers, found himself unable to cope with increasing financial problems. The 64-year-old farmer from Proudfootstown, near Drogheda, had built up one of the most successful piggeries in Ireland and in 2002 decided to retire. "I'm at them long enough," he told the Farmer's Journal at the time. He had other business interests to keep him busy, one of which was investing in the stock market. Friends said this weekend that the global credit crunch wiped significant value off his investments.
Six days before Christmas, Jack Marry saw his son off to work. He left a note for his family on the kitchen table. He took a shotgun and went into an upstairs bathroom, locked the door and then took his own life.
His family saw the note after mid-day. He left it to spare them the added trauma of discovering his body. They called the gardai, who found his body a short time later.
Fr Joe Deegan told the hundreds of mourners at his funeral in Slane that Mr Marry was a genius at solving problems. The shock of his death raised questions that may never be answered. Mr Marry is survived by his wife Rosemary and six children.
The need for mental health services and suicide prevention is now acute, according to campaigners. Dan Neville has called for the mental health budget to be increased from €3m to €10m. Poignantly, Patrick Rocca's death last Monday coincided with the launch of depression awareness week, organised by support group Aware. Tomorrow night, Mary White, Dublin Fianna Fail Senator and campaigner on suicide prevention, gives a public talk on the subject at Trinity College Dublin.
The Celtic Tiger may have created an affluent nation who knew how to party. The fear is that some of us may have lost the knack of coping with the bad times while the good times rolled.
Geraldine Clare, chief executive of Aware, urged those currently in difficulties not to give up hope. "People have incurred huge losses before and survived. They found qualities of strength and resilience within themselves to overcome that. During the prosperous times, we have been cushioned from finding those qualities, which are latent within ourselves," she said. "Some people can find those qualities in themselves when times are difficult. Others cannot. What is significant is the extent to which our sense of a person's self is bound up with wealth or employment, when we lose that we lose our sense of ourselves. We tend to be one dimensional in how we see ourselves and that does not bode well for our self-esteem. No matter what jobs or duties we carry out in our daily lives, there are many other aspects to each one of us."
Aware's helpline is open seven days a week from 10am to 10pm 1890 303302
Annette Rocca talks to Barry Egan, Living Section
- Maeve Sheehan
