Grandfather recalls identifying the bodies of his three grandchildren
Lisa Cash, 18, with her siblings, eight-year-old twins Chelsea and Christy Cawley, whose bodies were identified by their grandfather, a hearing was told. File Picture: An Garda Síochána /PA
The grandfather of three children killed during a violent domestic incident at a house in Tallaght last year has described being asked to identify the bodies of his three grandchildren.
Lisa Cash, 18, and her twin brother and sister, Christy and Chelsea Cawley, 8, died after they were fatally wounded during the incident at their family home in Rossfield Avenue in the Brookfield area of Tallaght on September 4, 2022.
Martin McDonagh told a preliminary hearing of an inquest into the deaths of the three victims how he identified their bodies in the resus room at Children’s Health Ireland in Crumlin at 3.35am, shortly after the fatal incident.
“I could see three beds. I looked at each of them and I told [the garda] that they’re my grandkids,” he recalled.
Mr McDonagh was accompanied by a number of female relatives to a sitting of Dublin District Coroner’s Court on Tuesday.
Garda Kevin Keane gave evidence of formally identifying the bodies of the three siblings to State pathologist SallyAnne Collis at the Dublin City mortuary in Whitehall.
The coroner, Clare Keane, said post-mortem examination results had shown that all three victims had died as a result of “multiple traumatic injuries”.
Detective Inspector John Walsh of Tallaght Garda station applied for an adjournment of the inquest under section 25.2 of the Coroners Act on the basis that criminal proceedings in the case had been instituted.
Det Insp Walsh informed the coroner that a person was before the courts in relation to the three deaths.
Dr Keane granted the application and adjourned the hearing until a date to be fixed after criminal proceedings have concluded.
The twins, who had made their first Holy Communion a short time before their deaths, were pupils at St Aidan’s National School in Tallaght, while their older sister was a student at St Aidan’s Community School in Brookfield.
A brother of the three victims, Andy Cash, 24, was arrested at the scene and he was subsequently charged with their murders.
He has been remanded in custody and will next appear at Cloverhill District Court on April 5.
