Phoebe Prince kin to Irish: Lay off visiting school kids

Phoebe Prince kin to Irish: Lay off visiting school kids - BostonHerald.com

Phoebe Prince’s family and friends are calling on Ireland to welcome a school trip by South Hadley High School kids next month as part of an effort to heal old wounds even as rage against the visit boils over on the Emerald Isle.

Eileen Moore, Phoebe’s aunt, called a planned protest of the trip by Irish nationals — still stung by the January 2010 suicide of the 15-year-old transfer student — “an injustice,” while others warned someone could get hurt.

“The kids should have the respect they deserve,” Moore told the Herald yesterday. “We’re ready to condemn kids who saved money for more than a year to go to Ireland, but not a single teacher or administrator who turned a blind eye to the bullying?”


Other anti-bullying crusaders in South Hadley said the Irish ire over the April 18-22 trip is off target.

“I don’t think you can punish those kids for what happened a year ago,” said South Hadley parent Darby O’Brien, a Prince family friend. “There are some good kids — real good kids — in South Hadley.”

Even Phoebe’s father in Ireland stepped in and asked that a proposed protest at the Shannon Airport in County Clare — close to Phoebe’s native home of Fannore — be stopped, according to Tony Fisher, an Irish national behind the planned rally.

But Fisher — a parent who helped start an anti-bullying program in County Cork after Prince’s suicide — said many in Ireland are still nursing hard feelings over the South Hadley teens who prosecutors say tormented Phoebe in the weeks before she took her own life.

“We felt disgusted and appalled,” Fisher said. “It felt like a real insult, not only to her family, but to the whole country. It’s too raw, still.”

The Irish Independent of Dublin has reported that the trip “is being seen as yet another example of lessons not learned in the 14 months since (Phoebe) tragically took her own life.”

The site IrishCentral.com also alerted readers to the visit, with online commenters calling it “bizarre” and “sick.”

Fisher sees the field trip as the latest blunder by South Hadley High administrators, who went ahead with a planned cotillion last year, just days after the Irish native hanged herself in the stairwell of her home.

Six former South Hadley students are charged in connection with her death.

The spring-break tour — which will take the 40 students, parents and chaperones from Ireland to Great Britain — is sponsored by the school’s Culture Club.

Luke Gelinas, a South Hadley parent who has sharply criticized school honchos in the wake of Phoebe’s death, said the trip could put the students in harm’s way.

“If something does happen, who wants to put that memory in these kids’ heads? I think it’s very irresponsible to take that risk,” he said. “These kids have been through enough.”

Added D’Arby O’Brien: “I wouldn’t wear a South Hadley Tigers shirt over there.”
South Hadley High Principal Dan Smith and Superintendent Gus Sayer did not return calls or e-mails yesterday.

Richard Weir contributed to this report.

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