Man whose body was found in Cork farmhouse died of natural causes

Gardaí have ruled out foul play following a post-mortem on the body of a man found in an isolated farmhouse near Dunmanway in West Cork on Saturday afternoon.

The post-mortem by Assistant State Pathologist, Dr Margaret Bolster, at Cork University Hospital (CUH) on Sunday morning found that he had died from natural causes.

Gardaí have yet to release the man's name but he has been named locally as Duncan Sloan, a 70-year-old English man who moved to West Cork in the 1970s.

Mr Sloan’s body was discovered in the house around lunch time on Saturday by a neighbour who noticed that he had not collected post at the end of a boreen where it was usually left for him.

The neighbour alerted gardaí and Garda technical officers carried out a preliminary examination of the man’s body at the scene before his remains were removed to CUH for a post-mortem.

Last seen alive

Gardaí carried out door-to-door enquiries in the area to try and establish when Mr Sloan died and a neighbour reported seeing him on Sunday November 13th.

Statements from neighbours, along with the results of the post-mortem, will be included in a file on Mr Sloan’s death that gardaí will prepare for an inquest.

A native of Biggin Hill, in Greater London, Mr Sloan cut a striking figure with his long hair and beard, fur coat and bell-bottom jeans, and was a familiar sight throughout West Cork and Cork city.

A strong advocate of cannabis use, he had a number of convictions for both possessing cannabis and cultivating plants at the remote farmhouse where lived at Gortnamuckla near Dunmanway.

During a trial at Cork Circuit Criminal Court in 2013, when he was convicted of cultivating cannabis, he said he had been growing it for 10 years and smoked around 3.5g a week.

Mr Sloan said he had the cannabis for his own use and he had no need to make money from selling cannabis, as he lived comfortably on welfare and had saved €1,000 a year over the past 10 years.

Cross-examined about selling a small quantity of cannabis cheaply to three people who called to his house at Gortnamuckla, he replied: “If I gave it to them for free, they would think I was queer.”