With all that was known, how was this snuffing out of a young life permitted to happen?

ON Thursday, there were two riveting hours in conversation with Jason Sherlock, the Dubliner's unsparing, emotionally-intelligent reflections carrying us to the very heart of life.

- ROY CURTIS

Unthinkably, the boy prince of Hill 16 - for so many a speedboat zipping forever across the lake of that sun-kissed summer of '95, the one which he so memorably and with such audacious teenage dazzle seized the title deeds - turns 50 today.

Elsewhere on these pages, in an interview of uncommon honesty, Jason opens doors to the most private rooms of his being. His words offer the latest cautionary tale against judging a book by the artwork on the dust jacket.

In that breakout season over three decades ago, Sherlock, gambolling across the most-storied rectangle of grass in Irish life with the joie de vivre of a young thoroughbred colt on the Curragh plains, seldom gave a hint of vulnerability.

Little did we know.

An access-all-areas autobiography a decade ago, a documentary of rare depth that followed, a moving production tracing the feelings of a boy abandoned by his father, and now today's words, offer a view from a more revealing angle.

Sherlock is thankful for the many blessings in his life, he is rewarding and thoughtful company, successful in life, a man who has learned to accept events that tormented him in the past, but, as today's interview shows, his skyline is not yet cloud free.

BATTLE

It shines a light on a truth, the one that echoes Michael Stipe in announcing that pretty much everybody hurts. All of us. Regardless of status or fame or outward appearance, few are offered complete immunity from life's waspish stings.

The bite can be superficial or deep. Its toxins can have a financial, emotional, social or psychological strain.