A report last night that two men were sighted carrying a bag containing a body in west Dublin, has turned out to be a false alarm. The report had sparked off a full-scale Garda investigation.
Gardai have confirmed that the incident was totally misread when two men were disturbed in the Clondalkin area melting down copper wire. The alarm, raised by two teenagers and a wild-fowler, prompted gardai to seal off a council-owned site in the Bawnogue area of Clondalkin near the Grand Canal.
The witnesses said they saw a head and an arm dangling from a canvas bag carried by one man, while a man accompanying him carried a petrol can. The boys got within 10 metres of the men and shouted a greeting to them.
The boys then walked away from the scene and alerted the wild-fowler, who had previously noticed the men acting suspiciously. He decided to walk in the same direction as the boys, but at a safe distance.
He said he saw what he believed to be body parts, including a head, in the bag.
The boys told gardai that at one point the men put down the bag and were about to set fire to it before the wild-fowler fired a shot in the next field.
The men then fled to a car. It was at this point that the witnesses said they saw a head dangling from the bag.
An incident room was set up in Clondalkin Garda station and ballistics, fingerprint and mapping experts were called to the site. Members of the Garda Emergency Response Unit were called in and the sub-aqua unit was also alerted.
The incident took place in a field in the townland of Grange near the 12th lock of the canal, close to Kilma huddrick Estate in Clondalkin.
Two men helped gardai at Ronanstown with their inquiries last night but were not detained.