Elderly couple die in house fire near Innishannon, Co Cork

A man and a woman in their 70s were found dead after fire gutted their detached home at Raheen, near Crossbarry outside Innishannon in west Cork, early on Tuesday, the Irish Examiner reported. One of the pair managed to raise the alarm with emergency services before dying in the blaze.

A call reached emergency services shortly after 7am, and crews arrived to find the rural house already well alight, the Irish Examiner reported. Cork County Fire Service, gardai and the ambulance service stayed at the scene for hours, roughly 16 kilometres south-west of Cork city, while firefighters worked to put out the blaze and search the wreckage for anyone else who might have been trapped inside.

The two bodies were recovered from the ruins and taken away by hearse around midday, the Irish Examiner reported. A recovery truck later removed a car from the property, and the road leading to the house remained sealed off into the afternoon, with smoke still visible drifting above the surrounding trees hours after the fire was first reported.

Investigators have not yet established what caused the fire, the Irish Examiner reported. Post-mortem examinations are to be carried out on both bodies at Cork city mortuary, and those findings, together with the fire investigation, will decide whether a file goes to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Garda Chief Superintendent Vincent O'Sullivan described the deaths as "a terrible tragedy for the community" and said officers' thoughts were with the victims' relatives. He asked anyone who drove past the house before 7am on Tuesday and noticed anything unusual to contact Macroom Garda Station.

Neighbours told the newspaper the couple had lived quietly in the area for years and were well regarded locally, with one saying he had spoken to the man only the previous day while out walking his dog, and that the couple were not known to have been involved in anything that would explain the fire.