Builders dig up pre-World War II grenades

WORKMEN on a Rathmines building site uncovered pre-World War II grenades and some rifle bullets while digging a trench yesterday.

The discovery was made Offaly man Paul Healy, who had just started in the job as foreman with a Dublin firm of sub-contractors.

“We were digging along a drainage trench when the bank gave way - and there they were on the bank,” said Paul, who made the find at Richmond Hill in south Dublin around 10am.

“I didn’t hang around, I just called the guards. There was a handful of bullets, about five or six. They were very old, very rusted, but we weren’t taking any chances.

“The guards came out and took a look and they rang the bomb squad after that.”

An Army bomb disposal team rendered the armaments safe.

A spokesman for the Defence Forces said the find included Mills grenades and old rifle bullets.

“Obviously they had been there for a long time before being dug up inadvertently,” he added.

“These things turn up from time to time, leftovers from the Emergency (1939-45). There are no subversive indications or anything like that.”

The increase in building and renovation of houses of recent years has led to a rise in such finds.

On one occasion Army explosive experts disposed of live 18lb shell which had been used for years by a Co Tipperary family as a doorstep.

In another case, a high-explosive shell recovered by Army ordnance officers had been polished every week for years.

It could have destroyed the house in which it had been kept as a mantelpiece ornament.