GARDAI believe two elderly farmers whose bodies were found in gruesome circumstances in different parts of the country yesterday were murdered.
One of them was found lying on a pool of blood in his farmhouse in Co Galway. The other was found down a 15 foot well in his farmyard in Co Kerry.
At Oranmore village near Galway city, the body of Mr Tom Casey, a retired farmer, was found in the kitchen floor of his ransacked home. His hands and legs here tied, and he appeared to have been lying in his own blood for bore than two days.
Another body was found later in the afternoon in a well at Kilcummin Co Kerry. The body has yet to be formerly identified but is believed to be that of Mr Patrick Daly, a 69 year old farmer who had been missing for six days. Mr Daly was last seen on Thursday, and a search for him was mounted over the weekend.
The body in the well was found by gardai searching Mr Daly's land.
It was apparently concealed at bottom of the well with sheets of black plastic.
The body is due to be taken from the well this morning. A post mortem is to be held later today to determine the cause of death. Gardai said they were treating it as a "suspicious death" but they expect to launch a full scale murder investigation once the post mortem has been completed.
The discovery of the two bodies comes against a background of increased attacks on elderly people living in isolated rural areas.
Along the western seaboard, gangs have been targeting old people, terrorising them in search of money.
Mr Casy, however lived close to the busy Galway which one local said suggested that the criminals responsible were not afraid to target relatively busy areas.
At the same time as gardai were uncovering the body in Co Kerry yesterday the Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, was announcing a tax relief measure in the Budget to help elderly people living alone with the cost of installing burglar alarms.