Irish Examiner view: Taking care of the invisible people in modern society

People have been urged to 'look out for their neighbours' after the recent deaths in Cloneen.

The house in Cloneen near the Tipperary-Kilkenny border where the bodies of the elderly couple were found. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Few details have emerged about the circumstances of the deaths of an elderly couple, said to be in their 70s or 80s and from Britain, in a house outside Cloneen, near Clonmel, Co Tipperary.

They have been described as living like “ghosts”, who kept to themselves and rarely ventured from their home. They may have been dead for up to a year. Found in separate rooms, a bedroom and a living room, foul play is not suspected in their deaths by gardaí.

Their story contains plenty of anecdote. It is understood the couple were in receipt of pensions, but these continued to be paid into a bank account, and utility bills were paid by standing order. The couple were thought to be planning to sell the house, which they paid around €190,000 for in 2012. Some thought the transaction was complete and they had moved back to the UK. Others believed they had gone away on holiday.

Locals were concerned as the grass outside the home had been allowed to grow long, and while a car was around the back of the property, there was no sign of life.

Eventually gardaí were asked to make a “welfare call”.

A neighbour said: “I don’t know much about them and I have found very few people who do, or even met them and spoke to them. 

They were like ghosts. They rarely mixed, they really did keep themselves to themselves and you’d be hard pressed to find anybody who knew them.”

This appears to be another example of a wrenchingly modern phenomenon, those people who pass by in a busy modern society, those of whom Paul McCartney lamented: “All the lonely people. Where do they all belong?”

Taoiseach Micheál Martin says the discovery is a reminder to “look out for our neighbours”, especially the elderly or vulnerable people who need support. And it is true that in a small, community-focused country such as Ireland, we pride ourselves in our neighbourliness.

It was only just over a month ago that a columnist in a leading Irish newspaper proclaimed that in London “you could literally drop dead on the street, and no one would care”.

But isolation and invisibility can be as much a rural as an urban experience, and it is no respecter of borders. During these very difficult times, we may come to hear more stories such as this.