THE coroner for West Galway, Dr Ciaran McLoughlin, recently returned a verdict of “sponaneous human combustion” in the case of an elderly man who had died in a fire at his home near Ballybane.
In 25 years, the coroner said, he had never before encountered this rare phenomenon. It prompted me to dig in my files from my early days in The Irish Timesnewsroom.
It was early 1970. I was “evening town reporter” which entailed telephoning the gardaí and the fire brigade at intervals to see if anything of significance was astir.
Sgt Tom O’Reilly at the Bridewell told me, “We’ve got a case of spontaneous human combustion down in Stoneybatter.”
“Of course you have. And there’s a couple of spaceships too.”
"It's not a joke. It's a rare phenomenon. If you know your Dickens it occurs in Bleak House." (Tom was something of a polymath. He went on to be deputy commissioner.) Half an hour later I was at the house in Prussia Street. All that remained of an elderly lady was a long mound of fine ash with her two feet virtually untouched at the end.
The carpet underneath and the chair in which she had been sitting were scorched yet not burned. But the melted television screen, 10 feet away, was evidence of intense heat. There was an electric fire. But there was no fire path between this and where the woman had died.
None of the professionals could identify any fire source. But the incineration of the victim would have required a temperature of perhaps 1,000 degrees, it was reckoned by the fire officer.
I went back to the office and talked to our medical correspondent, David Nowlan. David, being a good doctor, was sceptical. He suggested that I should telephone the city coroner, Prof Paddy Bofin.
Bofin was sceptical too. But he wanted to know more. Was there evidence of intense heat but little flame? Yes. Was the destruction of body tissue almost total? Yes. Did I, by any chance, notice the presence of smuts or fatty deposits on smooth surfaces in the room? Yes, the place was covered with them.
Bofin whooped with delight.
“Mr Brady, you’ve given me the most splendid news. I have a wager with the Coroner for the City of Westminster, Gavin Thurston, that whichever of us gets an authenticated case of this, the other will stand him a champagne dinner!”
“It sounds as if you’ve won your wager,” I said. “I hope you enjoy your dinner.”
“I will, indeed. And furthermore, Mr Brady, if this case turns out to be genuine, I will invite you as my guest.” And so, for one short hour and sweet, it seemed I had the world at my feet. I had an exclusive story and I was going to a champagne dinner with a pair of eminent practitioners in forensic medicine and jurisprudence.
It started to go pear-shaped later in the evening after I had typed up my report and handed it over to the deputy news editor, the doughty Gerry Mulvey. He didn’t believe it at first. So I took him through my notes. Still somewhat sceptical, he consulted the chief sub editor, Noel Fee.
Fee wouldn't have believed the Lord's Prayer from the lips of the Saviour himself. This nonsense was not going into The Irish Times. Then Donal Foley, the news editor, came in from a reception somewhere. Fee consulted Foley with whom his relations were, at best, strained. I think Foley saw a trap. He opted to hold it. He would talk to the editor, Douglas Gageby, in the morning.
And so my exclusive went into the newspaper limbo known as “over-matter”, in which stories were notionally kept alive but from which nothing ever escaped. As Bram Stoker might have put it, they became un-dead. I think Foley probably forgot all about it.
A few days later, still nursing my grievance, Gageby called me into his office and told me he was sending me to Vietnam, via Moscow and Peking with Sean MacBride. I quickly forgot about smuts and fatty deposits and elderly ladies vanishing in temperatures of 1,000 degrees.
At the end of May, Paddy Bofin returned a verdict of death by misadventure at an inquest into the death in Prussia Street. The Irish Timesreported it under the anodyne heading (albeit in capitals) "MYSTERY OF WOMAN'S DEATH IN FIRE" with a sub-heading (lower case) "rare phenomenon theory". I do not know if Paddy Bofin ever got his champagne dinner out of Gavin Thurston. My invitation never arrived so I suspect that the pledge was never fulfilled.
But wearing my current hat as Garda Ombudsman Commissioner I had the pleasure of dining with Ireland’s coroners at their annual conference in Ennis in October. They turned out to be a hospitable and lively group, notwithstanding the somewhat sombre associations of their office.
I talked with Ciaran McLoughlin. The phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion occurs and is undeniable, he agreed. There can be many explanations for the source of fire. The mystery is how the extraordinarily high temperature occurs without a complete conflagration.
Paddy Bofin and Gavin Thurston have passed on. So too have Gerry Mulvey, David Nowlan, Noel Fee, Donal Foley and Douglas Gageby. I wish they were around so that I could crow a bit about my exclusive and maybe even enjoy that champagne dinner.