A mother who killed her two small children has been jailed for life at the Central Criminal Court.
Lynn Eagar (49) with an address of Winetown, Rathowen, Co Westmeath pleaded guilty to the murder of Mikey Dennany aged two and Thelma Dennany aged five after setting fire to a car the children were sitting in on the 9th of September 2022.
The court heard that the little girl’s body was so badly burned in the blaze that it was difficult to see her remains in the vehicle, and that Mikey had been pulled from the car but was beyond saving.
Eager suffered minimal burns in the blaze and was pulled from the vehicle by passers by.
The children’s father Michael Dennany delivered a victim impact statement describing the first time he had seen his children on the days they were born were the happiest of his life saying he was the “happiest man alive, I was smitten.”
He described how on the day the children died he had planned to take them chestnut hunting but that he “never got to do that”.
He added that “Their daddy should have been there to protect them.” and that when “they needed me the most, I was useless.”
“When I left them that morning they were asleep, I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye,” he said.
He lamented how the absence of the two young children had turned a house full of “noise” and “love” into a place of “heartache and despair”. He noted that while the children’s toys remained the “noise” and the “love” no longer remained.