It was, as the coroner remarked in Bantry, a ‘grim day', as five West Cork ‘self-caused' deaths came before the inquest court.
IT was, as the coroner remarked in Bantry, a ‘grim day’, as five West Cork ‘self-caused’ deaths came before the inquest court.
All deaths were of men ranging from their early 20s to their 50s.
One related to a young, married man with two children, who was found dead in his car by refuse workers.
Another involved an Italian national who was working in West Cork in exchange for room and board. His body was discovered by the owner of the property where he was working.
‘I have been finding it very difficult since the incident,’ the owner of the property told the inquest. ‘He (the Italian man) hardly spoke a word of English, but I think he definitely had some problems in his mind.’
Another inquest related to a man believed to be from Holland who, with his partner and two children, had rented a house in West Cork for four years. The landlord said that the children never looked happy and that a few months before the death his partner and children had returned to Holland, and he was ill.
When the landlord asked him why he didn’t go with them and get treatment in Holland, the landlord said that he was told: ‘He couldn’t as he had murdered someone, and just left it at that.’
In another case the coroner heard of a young man who was found by his concerned housemates after they broke down the door to his room.
His mother said it came out of the blue. The two housemates recalled the last time they had seen him was when they spoke with him about his high score in a game of Pinball on the Playstation that had been beaten.
In the fifth case, coroner Frank O’Connell heard of a man in his 40s who had been suffering for years from anxiety and depression.
His mother told the inquest that he had told her that he did not want to attend a psychiatric appointment at Bantry hospital the following day.
Before his mother headed off to work, he had told her that he would clear up some garden cuttings.
However, when she arrived home she found the front door opened and ‘the work he said he would do was not done.’
The court and the gardaí expressed their sympathy to the families and friends of the deceased.
