82-year-old among seven suicide cases at town’s coroner’s court
“Given this man’s age this is most unusual,” Limerick coroner John McNamara noted when he recorded a suicide verdict in relation to the death of the man who lived alone in Co Limerick.
He was found dead by a home help when she arrived on one of her routine visits.
In a statement read out at an inquest in Newcastle West held earlier this week, she told of the shock at discovering the body near the stairs after she entered. Gardaí said there were obvious signs of suicide when they went to the house.
The home help alerted relatives who lived nearby and a doctor pronounced the man dead at the scene.
It was one of seven suicide verdicts recorded at the coroner’s court held at Newcastle West courthouse.
Six of the inquests were men, the youngest of whom was in his early 20s. The seventh was heard into the death of a woman, the mother of a young family.
Evidence was heard that one man was the father of a newborn baby.
In another, a Polish national had told friends that he was troubled by family matters at home in Poland days before his body was discovered near a rented house he shared.
Coroner McNamara said the family issues going on in Poland had troubled him deeply as he had only been in Ireland a few weeks seeking work.
Mr McNamara said that at many inquests where verdicts of suicide were recorded there were no obvious reasons and the deaths had “come out of the blue”.
“We often can’t get answers for the families,” he said. Mr McNamara noted that in each of the seven cases there was no note left and no evidence of external factors such as excess alcohol or drugs.
