Updated at 12:54
Gardaí investigating the violent deaths of two elderly brothers at an isolated farm in north Cork have found the body of a third man in a river nearby.
The Irish Times reports that the third body was found by gardaí searching an area near St Joseph’s Church at Killacluig, just northwest of Mitchelstown, where a red Toyota Corolla van was found earlier.
Members of the public were this morning asked to assist gardaí in Cork in urgently locating the van.
Gardaí believe the men were killed at the farm by a third man who fled the scene in a van belonging to one of the dead men.
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 (ASU) as they believed that one or possibly two men on the property may have been armed with a gun.
ASU members 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 was 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.
Garda Alert - North Cork, 26th February 2021
Gardaí in Cork are urgently looking to trace the whereabouts of a red Toyota Corolla Van, registration 03-WW-1556.
Members of the public with information are asked to call 999 immediately. Do not approach or this vehicle. pic.twitter.com/VLs9yuVr29— An Garda Síochána (@GardaTraffic) February 26, 2021
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 is not the registered owner. The second brother who died lives at the farm, 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.
