Gardaí are investigating a possible confession note left by Alan Hawe, 40, at the scene of the Cavan murder-suicide.

Alan Hawe, 40, was a conscientious and obliging man, who was at the heart of his community, a friend and neighbour has said.

A family wiped out, a community laid waste by grief, a house within whose walls lies the answer to what motivated the killer in an horrific murder-suicide that claimed the lives of five.

Gardaí are treating the death of a family of five at a house in Co Cavan as a murder- suicide.