GARDAÍ ARE investigating the cause of a house fire in Boyle, Co Roscommon which claimed the life of a five-year-old girl. Her two sisters were saved from the fire by their father.
The outbreak was being treated as suspicious by gardaí, who are awaiting reports from forensic experts.
The children’s mother, Teresa Keane, who also lives in Boyle, gave birth to twin girls at Sligo General Hospital at the weekend and neighbours described how the little girl who died, Marie Connolly, and her two younger sisters went to visit the new arrivals on Saturday.
Neighbour Frances Woods said the community was heartbroken. “She was a very happy little child, the poor little pet,” she said. “Her poor mother had twin girls on Saturday and the father brought them down to see the babies and they were all very excited.”
The girl was in senior infants at the local Scoil na nAingeal Naofa national school, where she was described as a “bubbly, popular little girl”.
The child’s body was discovered in an upstairs room of the terraced house on Termon Road, where part of the floor had collapsed due to the intensity of the fire which broke out between 2.30am and 3am yesterday.
The girls’ father, named locally as Richard Connolly jnr, tried to save his daughters, who were living with him in the house.
According to unofficial reports, Mr Connolly, described as a “devoted father”, jumped from an upstairs back window with his two younger daughters, aged three and four, in his arms.
Gardaí are now trying to establish whether an accelerant such as petrol was used to start the fire.
There were unconfirmed local reports that an outsider may have been involved in some kind of a dispute with someone in the house and this was being investigated by gardaí.
Marie’s two sisters were removed to Sligo General Hospital and are understood to be suffering from smoke inhalation. It is understood their father was transferred to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, where he was being treated for back injuries and a punctured lung.
More than 20 firefighters from Boyle, Carrick-on-Shannon and Elphin stations who battled the fire had to evacuate neighbours from the adjoining houses as at one stage it looked as if the blaze would spread.
Senior fire officer Norbert Ferguson said the force of the fire was so strong that the stairs had been completely destroyed, making a rescue attempt much more difficult. Fire crews used their own ladder to gain access to the top floor.
Darren O’Flaherty, the first fire officer on the scene, said the house was engulfed in flames when he arrived. It is understood the father and two younger children were out of the house at this stage but fire crews were told that there was still a child upstairs.
Much of the floor in the upstairs room where the child was discovered had collapsed by the time rescuers arrived.
Mr Ferguson said the fire had swept through both floors and getting access to the upstairs floor was extremely difficult.
Speaking at the scene, Garda Supt Tom Mullarkey, from Boyle station, said: “We do not know the cause. All I can say is that we are investigating the circumstances.”
As a Garda forensic team arrived in Boyle, Supt Mullarkey said officers were still trying to locate people who might have been in the area early yesterday morning.