TRAGEDY NEAR DUBLIN.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 78, 3 April 1926, Page 9

TRAGEDY NEAR DUBLIN.

FIVE PEOPLE DEAD. COUNTRY HOUSE BURNED. MURDER AND MADNESS. (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received ILSO a.m.) LONDON, April 2. The latest theory is that poison is the possible explanation of the tragedy in the country mansion known as Lamancha, close to Dublin, where five people were found dead, when the burning house was entered. The house was owned and occupied by Joseph and Peter MacDonnell and their two sisters. They kept a servant and a gardener. Early in the morning a workman discovered that the building was ablaze. On the arrival of the fire brigade they found the body of the gardener in a room in the basement. There were large wounds in his head. Peter MacDonnell was found dead in a back room with his clothes spread over his body. Joseph MacDonnell lay dead in another room. In the upper part of the mansion which was ablaze the firemen found the bodies of the two sisters practically burned to cinders. The servant could not say whether the inmates of the house had been attacked. The outer doors were barred. The fire apparently started in different rooms on tbe ground floor and spread to the upper floors. Joseph MacDonnell was the last of tbe family to be seen alive, the others had not been seen since Monday, when Maccade, the gardener, saw Annie MacDonnell in the garden looking ill. and was told that Mary McGowan, a servant, was sick in bed. Joseph MacDonnell later said that Peter and Alice were also sick. Maccade said he went to a wake in Malahide and when he returned he found the mansion' in flames. ■ The MacDonnells were reputed to be wealthy. The police believe one of them lost his reason and having set the premises on fire attacked the other occupants.— (A. and N.Z. Cable.)