“It still feels like home, you know, everywhere I look around, I can see happy, happy memories of the kids. It was a happy house. They were very happy kids."
Andrew McGinley, the father of Conor, Darragh, and Carla, has said that letter of support helped get him "through lockdown" after the tragic loss of his three children.
Earlier today, Deirdre Morley was found not guilty by reason of insanity for the murder of the couple's three children, Carla, Conor, and Darragh.
The jury of ten men and two women reached their decision after four hours and 23 minutes.
Now, On RTÉ Prime Time on Thursday, McGinley has opened up on the "surreal moment" where his home became a "crime scene", and his hopes to keep his children's memories alive.
"They were just fantastic to me, the neighbours, the community, just everybody has been, and they can't do enough," he told presenter Miriam O'Callaghan.
"I have to recognize everybody who wrote to me because when I put the appeal out for letters at the start of lockdown, I think Conor's clips had about 300 followers.
"So, I thought if 30 or 40 of those people wrote to me, it'd be lovely it would get me through, and I'd write back and would get me through lock down a little bit. I know. And sure, next thing I'm looking at about 10 An Post boxes in the kitchen. But they got me through so thank you to everybody."
The distraught father added that he wants to "celebrate" the lives of his children instead of being angry about the loss.
"I'm no good to anybody curled up in a ball in the corner. And everybody wants to help. Everybody wants to support me, friends and family, are looking to me to what they can do," he continued.
"So the more mad the idea that I can come up with to celebrate their lives then the more I can get people to help. And I'd rather be doing that than just be dressed in black and with the curtains drawn. I want to be out there shouting about the kids.”
McGinley also spoke about the "surreal" moment when he found his three children dead at his home in Newcastle in Dublin.
“I opened the door and I found Conor, first of all. And then the fire brigade had been attending the scene outside and they came in with me and we found Darragh and Carla then as well," he said.
"It's somewhat surreal when your house becomes a crime scene because I was just outside and you just don't know what to do and what to say to anybody.
“It still feels like home, you know, everywhere I look around, I can see happy, happy memories of the kids. It was a happy house. They were very happy kids. I think it was because they were such great friends.”
Reflecting on the trial Andrew told Miriam that some of the evidence in court over the past few days had left him and his family wanting answers, adding that he would like to see questions answered in regards to his wife's treatments over the past number of years.
"I suppose when we, as a family, look at the care that Dee got from the professional services, we have a lot of questions, especially when we listened to the two medical experts in the days of the trial, and some of it was new to us," he added.
"So I need to understand that. And the only way you can understand that is from the people who were treating Dee previously in the last, couple of years. So my request is that they would meet with us as a family so that we can review our treatment plan over the last few years and understand.
