THE MOTHER and son who died following a fire in their house in Co Meath were named locally yesterday as Michelle Gilbert (28) and Jack (6).
Gardaí say they are treating the deaths as “a tragic accident” and confirmed that their bodies were discovered in the same bedroom by fire fighters called to the house on Saturday afternoon.
“This was a terrible accident, there was nothing untoward, it is a heart-breaking situation,” said one garda.
Preliminary investigations suggest a small fire began in a sofa in a downstairs sitting room and that the smoke generated travelled upstairs and into the bedrooms.
Postmortems were carried out yesterday and were expected to confirm they died of smoke inhalation.
It is believed that a neighbour walking by the semi-detached house on Saturday at lunchtime noticed that the downstairs windows were blackened and alerted the authorities.
No flames were seen and it appears that all the damage was caused by smoke.
Fire crews from Navan attended the scene and used hatchets to break into the front door.
Traumatised family members, including her mother who lived in another part of the same estate, visited the house while the emergency services were there.
“We thought the fire engines were here for something like a shed fire; we had no idea until later that anyone had died. We are stunned,” said Declan Kettle, chairman of the residents’ association.
Flowers were laid at the front door of the house yesterday.
One neighbour said: “we passed the house on the way to and from the shop and we saw nothing . . . everybody is shocked. We didn’t see anything at all.”
Next-door neighbour Tomasz Idzikowski said: “I heard nothing at all. I spent all day and night and heard nothing.”
Mayor of Navan Anton McCabe said yesterday: “The circumstances of their death are unimaginable, it makes it so very hard to comprehend. You look for reasons for it and ways to prevent it happening again.”
It is believed that the houses, which are between eight and 10 years old, each had two smoke alarms fitted.