Digital Desk Staff
Gardaí are expected to launch a murder inquiry later today following the discovery late last night of the bodies of two brothers at their isolated farm in North Cork.
Officers were alerted around midnight when they received a call from a woman who told them that her father had been killed at his family’s farm at Curraghgorm, three miles north-west of Mitchelstown.
As The Irish Times reports, Garda under Supt Padraic Powell of Fermoy Garda station requested the services of the Armed Support Unit as they believed that one or possibly two men on the property may have been armed with a gun.
Armed Support Units from Cork and Limerick were dispatched to the scene and established a cordon around the farm which is located down a boreen, off the N73 between Mitchelstown and Mallow and near Kildorrery.
A large force of gardaí from the North Cork Division were dispatched to the area to close-off roads and keep members of the public away from the scene of the incident until the area has been safe.
Members of the ASU made their way with caution into the farmhouse and into a barn where they discovered the body of another man, a brother of the first man whose body they had found earlier in the yard.
Both men were in their late 60s but a third brother, also in his late 60s who is the registered owner of the farm could not be found and gardaí are currently looking for him this morning. They have warned people not to approach him as he may be armed.
The first man who was killed lives in Co Tipperary with his partner but frequently returns to visit the family home even though he has not is the registered owner. The second brother who died lives at the farm even though he too had no title to the property.
The bodies of the two deceased remain at the scene, and it is expected the gardaí will request the services of the State Pathologist’s Office later today which they hope will establish how exactly the two men died.
Last night’s tragedy comes just five months after an incident in Castlemagner near Kanturk in North Cork where a man and his son shot themselves after shooting his other son in a dispute over land.
Gardaí believe Tadg O’Sullivan (59) and his son, Diarmuid (23) were both involved in the shooting dead of Mr O’Sullivan’s other son, Mark (26) at the family home at Raheen, Kanturk on October 26th.
Gardaí believe Mr O’Sullivan’s widow, Anne (60) was spared by her husband and younger son so she could live with the torment after they shot Mark in a row over who would inherit the 115 acre farm. More to follow
