Cigarette may have been cause of fatal fire

GARDAÍ believe a dropped cigarette may have started a fire which caused the death of a young County Tipperary man yesterday morning.

Paul Power, aged 33, from Irishtown, Clonmel, was found dead in a front room of a house in Charleville, Co Cork, shortly before 6am. A woman in her early 40s and her sons aged 21 and 17 who were also in the house at the time managed to escape when the fire alarm went off.

The body of Mr Power, who was lodging at the house at De Valera Place, was removed by firemen and taken to Cork University Hospital where a post mortem was later carried out by pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster.