Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
£2m fields fuelled bloody family feud
Inherited land believed to be at centre of murder-suicide horror
GREEN fields worth up to £2million are believed to have sparked the bloody family feud that ended in a murder-suicide horror.
Aerial images online show the lush farmland around and adjoining the O’sullivans’ farm near the Cork town of Kanturk.
Irish police are investigating if a dispute over who would inherit land led to the shocking deaths of Tadgh O’sullivan, 59, and his two sons Mark, 26, and 23-year-old Diarmuid.
Mark was found with gunshot wounds in a bedroom of the farmhouse while his father and brother were discovered in a field with a fairy fort 600m away.
Detectives are studying a 12-page note attached to Diarmuid’s body which outlines how the grievance had spiralled out of control in recent months.
He had kept it strapped to his leg, where it was discovered during a postmortem,
It revealed his deepening anger at being left out of inheriting family land.
The detailed note fuelled speculation the accounting student had planned the shocking events that unfolded in the family home at Assolas in the early hours of Monday morning. Other documents found at the scene suggested a legal showdown over the row was looming.
A postmortem was conducted on Mark’s remains yesterday.
It’s suspected he was shot after his brother and father confronted him in a bedroom.
Gardai are trying to determine if the two then walked to the field with the fairy fort and died together in a pact.
Trainee solicitor Mark had just returned to the house with his mother Ann who he had accompanied to Dublin where she underwent surgery earlier this month for a serious medical condition.
The heartbroken 60-year-old mother is understood to have inherited around 150 acres of family land herself.
The O’sullivans did not work the farm themselves and had leased the valuable land out to third parties.
The results of the postmortems carried out on the bodies of Tadhg and Diarmuid have yet to be released. Formal identification of all three bodies by a close friend of the family was expected to take place yesterday afternoon.
Two rifles found close to the bodies of Tadhg and Diarmuid are also undergoing ballistic examination. Gardai hope the results of that, along with the postmortem results, will help clarify the exact sequence of what happened to the three men.
Justice Minister Helen Mcentee described the deaths as an “unspeakable tragedy”.
Speaking on RTE’S Morning Ireland, she also paid tribute to the emergency services who responded to the shooting. Ms Mcentee said: “I’m not sure what I can say other than this is an absolute tragedy.
“I do want to offer my sincerest condolences to the family, to the entire community who I know are in shock following on from this.”