‘It’s terrible to see a dispute ending with two men dead’

STUNNED locals were stuck for words and few could comprehend how or why a bitter, protracted dispute over land could spark a murder and a suicide in the close-knit community of Coolyhune on the Carlow/Kilkenny border.

They huddled in groups along the narrow, lonely country roadway close to where the bodies of 30-year-old Jim Healy and 38-year-old Michael Kehoe lay late on Saturday evening.

When Mick’s father, Simon Kehoe, died a few years ago, he did not have a will, neighbour Michael Cushen explained, struggling for words, his eyes fixed on the field where Jim Healy’s remains lay.