Messages sent by Noah Donohoe detailed how his moods were “up and down” in the week before his disappearance, an inquest into the Belfast teenager’s death has heard.
Online exchanges between the 14-year-old and his friend, Jay Tierney, were read at Belfast Coroner’s court on Monday following the opening of the long-awaited hearing last week.
Giving evidence for over two hours, Mr Tierney said he considered Noah to be his best friend and described him as a “straight A student” who was “always very caring”.
“He was eccentric but not in a bad way…his mind was always 14 steps ahead. He was one in a million,” he said.
Noah had “rough patches” but was “on the up and up” and “very excited about the future”, Mr Tierney told jurors.
The 14-year-old St Malachy’s College student went missing on June 21st, 2020, sparking a major search operation.
His body was found in a storm drain six days later. A postmortem examination found that the cause of death was drowning.
Mr Tierney was in Noah’s form class at St Malachy’s and the pair communicated online during the first Covid lockdown, sometimes spending up to eight hours a day on Skype calls.
They had planned to meet at Cave Hill in the north of the city on the day of his disappearance.
The trip was cancelled by Mr Tierney due to poor weather and he sent Noah two messages which were “never read”, the court heard.
In a separate message sent by Noah on June 19th, he spoke about his feelings to Mr Tierney and another friend.
“Dude I’ve been really up and down the past few days, just thinking about life in general,” he wrote.
“I realise that has taken a toll on me. But I’m fine now and I’m sorry if I’ve been really cold with you.”
In another message read to the court, Noah said he “realised there’s stuff I’ve been in denial about”.
He did not want to lie to his friends about how he “felt in the past”.
Donal Lunney, counsel for the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) asked Mr Tierney if he knew what had caused his friend’s “denial”.
He said he could not speculate on this but did not believe it was linked to Noah’s sexuality.
“Noah was definitely straight. There’s no notion of Noah struggling with his sexuality,” Mr Tierney said.
The court heard that on the day before his disappearance, the two friends met for the first time since lockdown and had a three-hour walk across the city.
The main focus of their conversation was a book Noah was reading called 12 Rules for Life by Joran Peterson.
“It seemed to be very important to him…It was like the book was the catalyst to what he was thinking,” Mr Tierney told the court.
Jurors were also shown a social media message from Noah to his mother, Fiona Donohoe, a week before his disappearance, in which he said, “risks must be taken because the greatest risk in life is doing nothing”.
Mr Tierney said they discussed the quote on their walk and he interpreted the “risk” as Noah moving to London.
“It was nothing untoward or bad,” he added.
The principal of St Malachy’s, Deirdre McCusker, told the inquest that Noah was one of the top academic achievers in his year group.
He was a “really lovely child” who “epitomised the ethos” of the school, she said.
“Noah was humble though he was exceptionally bright,” she said.
Ms McCusker was contacted by Noah’s mother a week before his disappearance due to concerns about his mood and motivation for school work.
Counselling and supervised study was offered by the school.
Issues raised by Ms Donohoe were “not unusual” given Noah’s age group and during the period of the Covid restrictions, Ms McCusker told the court.
The school’s cello teacher, Andrew Nesbitt, said he had never taught a student who “progressed as well as Noah did”.
“He was an exceptional student,” he said.
The inquest continues.