Gardai Investigate New Bullying Allegations In Tragic Donegal Town

Gardai have started to investigate new bullying allegations made against teenagers in the town where Erin Gallagher and her sister Shannon tragically took their own lives.

The Irish Independent reports that the gardai inquiry comes as the HSE reviews the way it handled the case of the two sisters who died six weeks apart in Donegal last year.

A host of teenagers who were wongly accused of cyber-bullying Erin before her death have now become the victims of bullies themselves.

Erin and Shannon Gallagher were from the Ballybofey area and attended Finne Valley College in Stranorlar.

Erin died in October of last year, amid reports that she was being bullied online. Her sister, Shannon, tragically took her own life just six week later. It has also come to light that Shannon had unsuccessfully tried to take her own life just a week before her younger sister died.

The Gallagher sisters, Erin and Shannon

Gardai now believe that the bullies deliberately let Erin believe that a group of innocent girls were responsible for all the online taunts she received. Now the wrong-accused teengers have become vicitimised as well.

According to reports one young girl was called a “murderer” while she was out with her friends recently, while another was asked “did you kill anyone this week?”

“There are at least a dozen teenagers involved in the bullying of these young girls,” said a source.

“Their lives have been turned upside down despite the fact they were not involved at all. Their parents had taken them off social media sites before Shannon’s attempt to take her life in October and Erin’s subsequent tragic death a few days later,” the source added.

Erin, aged 13, had been bullied on the controversial social media website ask.fm, which allows users to post comments anonymously. The people behind the comments on her page may never be identified due to this.

Officially, the gardai will only say that investigations into the case are continuing.

However, a source said: “There are no winners in this tragic case. The irony of course is that a least a dozen teenagers are now doing to these girls what was done to Erin.”