‘A knock on a door can save a life’ – the tragedy of undiscovered deaths

Rising number of cases here sheds light on issue of social isolation

The notice placed in a Manchester newspaper appealing for Alan Moore’s next of kin to contact Wexford garda station came like a bolt from the blue. It appeared in the Salford Advertiser in 2012, leading Mr Moore’s siblings to learn the 62-year-old had been found dead in his home in Ireland.

The Englishman’s body had lain undiscovered at his home in Lower John Street, Wexford town, for up to two months.

His family had no idea he was living in Ireland. The last time they spoke to him was when their mother died in 1988 and he attended the funeral.

After that, he disappeared from their lives. Relatives tried to contact him, but without success.

Mr Moore was found dead by gardaí on March 18, 2012. The alarm had been raised by a woman who thought it was strange to see Christmas lights still on in the window.

The discovery was met with shock and sadness in the local community.

Three months later, gardaí found the remains of Philip Knight (52), which had lain undiscovered for weeks in his home in New Ross.

Since then, the incidence of people’s deaths going unnoticed has become more prevalent.

This week, the body of Joyce ‘Joy’ O’Mahony was found in a downstairs room in a house in The Lough in Cork city.

Ms O’Mahony, who was aged in her late 60s, may have lain dead for nearly two years.

Her remains were discovered when local residents raised concerns about a pest control problem and a firm investigated.

It is the third such death in Cork in recent times.

Coroners say they are aware of several similar discoveries in recent years.

“In general, I would say there are more cases now than there were 20 years ago,” south Cork coroner Frank O’Connell said.

“It’s related to the way society runs now and the fact that people are being left to their own devices when really they have reached a stage in life where they need care.”

In January last year, the skeletal remains of Tim O’Sullivan (62) were found in a boarded-up terraced bungalow in Mallow, Co Cork.

An inquest established he had died 22 years earlier, some time between January 9 and January 23, 2001.

In June 2022, the bodies of Nicholas Smith (79) and his wife Hilary (82) were discovered in a house in Cloneen, Co Tipperary.

Local people assumed they had gone to England, but their bodies were found after a neighbour became suspicious.

It is believed they had lain dead in different parts of the property for up to 18 months.

“A lot of the cases we see are not necessarily elderly people,” Mr O’Connell said.

“They are mostly middle-aged people – 40s, 50s and 60s. Common factors are mental health, drinking, living alone and being on social welfare.”

The south Cork coroner said his most recent case of this kind was about three weeks ago.

“It involved a 62-year-old found dead in his apartment,” he said. “He was only found when Cork County Council went down to investigate unpaid rent.

They found an unopened Christmas card with a date stamp of December 18 inside the door. He was dead since then or before it.”

The man was identified in the media as 61-year-old Mark Watters, from Walkinstown, Co Dublin.

He had been living alone in a flat at The Courtyard complex in Castletownbere, where his body was found.

In October 2019, Cork city coroner Philip Comyn raised concerns after two similar cases came before his court within a week.

They related to elderly people who had been found dead in their homes several months after they had died.

Mr Comyn was speaking at the end of the inquest into the death of 79-yearold George Harrington, who lived in a flat over the Glen Resource Centre in Cork city.

Before his death in November 2018, he collected his pension weekly from a post office and regularly picked up prescription medication from a pharmacy.

He was found dead in his flat in May 2019.

“Mr Harrington had been missing for six months,” Mr Comyn said. “He had been active enough in the community, he had gone to the shop regularly, the post office, and still nobody missed him.

“There tends to be a commonality [in these cases]. My experience is that in most of these cases these people are reclusive, they have become estranged from their family, not the fault of the family, just the nature of the person and that the family gets rebuffed. There can be other reasons. The neighbour may assume they have gone elsewhere.”

Mr Comyn said that although he was making a wide generalisation, “people know less about their neighbours than they used to”.

Campaigner Paddy O’Brien, who raised concerns in 2019 about what he called “increasing urban isolation” following the discovery of Mr Harrington’s body, said such cases are happening too frequently.

“With all these cases, the one in Clonmel, the one in Castletownbere, the one in Mallow, the same things are said,” he said.

“You hear, ‘Oh, they were private, they wanted to keep to themselves, we thought they had gone away’.

“I say to people, don’t think anything. Knock on the door because a knock on the door can save a life.”

More people live alone now than ever before, whether by choice or circumstance.

People become estranged from families following separation or divorce.

They move to different towns or countries and come and go from neighbourhoods.

A large proportion of older people live alone. Many are living longer and out-living relatives.

Alone, the charity that supports the elderly, has also previously raised concerns that the problem could become more common.

CEO Seán Moynihan said he believes the recent spate of cases is a consequence of the increasing levels of loneliness in society.

“There has been a massive increase in loneliness in young and old,” he said.

“Every time something tragic like this happens, it’s the extreme end of loneliness. We need strategies around loneliness and isolation.

“Once people are disconnected, their health and living conditions deteriorate. There is a big swing with how we deal with communities, friends and neighbours and older relatives.”

Mr Moynihan believes the changing face of communities in built-up areas is leaving people who live alone increasingly isolated.

Demand for Alone’s visitation service, when volunteers visit and spend time with older people, is huge.

“Three or four things have changed in the last 20 years,” Mr Moynihan said. “During the day, there are much less people in our communities – they have gone to work or are at a computer.

“Places people met each other at – post offices, banks – some of them aren’t there any more.

“We have moved into a digital world that gives us a connection, but loneliness is about an emotional need, and you can’t always get that emotional connection digitally.

“We have an ageing demographic and our family size has hugely shrunk. Some of that informal infrastructure from families is gone, so in a lot of ways we have lost the pillars of what combated loneliness.

“What was once there naturally, we now have to put services and supports in, and that’s the challenge we now face.”

“We need strategies around isolation... Once people are disconnected, their health can deteriorate”