BY CONOR SHARKEY

"THERE are young people out there who need help. Please get them help."

That's the heartbreaking plea left by a young Strabane man in a letter before he took his own life at the weekend.

The death of Brendan 'Barney' McGee (22) has numbed the Strabane community where he was a well known and popular member of the Shamrocks Hurling team. Brendan's body was discovered on Sunday morning by his fiancee Wendy McColgan at the Castlegrange home they shared. The couple had been engaged for seven months and planned to get married in the near future.

And while mourners gathered yesterday (Wednesday) for the funeral, family and friends were struggling to come to terms with the tragic reasons behind the young man's suicide.

Shortly before his death, Brendan McGee penned a number of messages to his family. In one, he told his fiancee that she was the only girl he had ever loved and that he did so with all his heart.

In a second, much darker revelation however, the 22-year-old wrote that he had been suffering from long-term depression and that he could not go on.

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In a further heartbreaking twist, Brendan said he hoped his death would prompt more research into depression.

He also pleaded with other young people not to do what he was about to do, but to seek professional help.

Speaking to the Strabane Chronicle on Tuesday, Brendan's devestated fiancee revealed that at no point had her boyfriend confided in her about his depression, but that she hoped other young people would learn from his death.

She said: "Barney was so popular and was the centre of attention wherever he went. We got engaged on March 16 this year. He wanted to leave it to St Patrick's Day but he was just so excited. We were planning to get married just as soon as we could get the money together," she said.

Revealing how she discovered her boyfriend had taken his own life, Miss McColgan continued: "The last time I spoke to Barney was at 6pm on Saturday, just before I left for work. He had been in grand humour all day and in the best of form.

"I arrived back after work and he had locked me out. I knew he had been out for a drink so I thought there was no chance I would get him up. I called him for everything under the sun before I went to my mum's for the night. I went around the next morning and looked in the windows and that's when I found him."

While Brendan had never spoken to his family about his illness, his revealed in his final words that he had sought help by himself.

"In the notes he left behind, Barney said that this had been with him for a long time and that he just couldn't go on. He said he had tried to get help and was hoping to get an appointment with a professional counsellor. The appointment never came," Wendy said.

Meanwhile, Brendan's father, John said his son wanted other people who were feeling down to tell someone instead of bottling it up.

"He wrote that he hoped his death wouldn't be in vain and that maybe now people would look into why so many young people take their own lives. He wrote that people just don't chat enough and that there is young people out who there who need help. 'Please, get them help' he wrote," John said.

Urging young people to fulfil her boyfriend's final wish, Wendy added: "If there is anything troubling you, talk about it because you don't understand the suffering you leave behind when you take your own life.

"Just get help. There is always someone there to talk to. I just wish Barney had talked to someone. I would have loved to listen."