Shock as man’s decomposed body found in house in Sallynoggin, south Dublin

It was the second incident the workers were exposed to at the property after they discovered a viable grenade just three hours before.

Gardai were called to both incidents which unfolded at a property on Sallynoggin Road yesterday.

Sources say that the council workers were dispatched to the property after the local authority had no interaction with the tenant of the house for over a year.

“The plan was for the workers to do a clean-up of the house which was in very bad condition,” a source explained.

“The tenant was a man who was known in the area as being someone best described as a hoarder who kept very much to himself and the property was in a terrible state with rubbish everywhere,” the source said.

As the workers went about their difficult task, they discovered a hand grenade in the property and contacted gardai at around 9.30am yesterday.

Officers from Dun Laoghaire Garda Station rushed to the scene and after observing the grenade the army bomb disposal team were called out.

An examination of the bomb determined that it was “viable but historic” and probably dates from the Irish War of Independence over a hundred years ago or from a similar era.

Army experts removed the grenade and carried out a controlled explosion on the device at a nearby location.

Shortly after this, the council workers went back into the property to carry out their work but it was not long before they were confronted with a horrific scene.

Sources say that while trying to clean up some of the rubbish in the house, the workers found the decomposed body of a man in the house.

Gardai were again alerted and came back to the property at around 12.25pm yesterday.

The body was removed from the scene and a post-mortem took place today at Dublin City Mortuary.

The post-mortem indicated that there was nothing suspicious about the man’s death and Gardaí believe that while he has not been formally identified that he was the tenant of the house.

His aged has not yet been determined but sources say he was most likely aged over 60.

“Gardai will need to confirm this by the use of DNA as his body was badly decomposed,” a senior source said.

“It is believed that he may have been dead for up to a year but that has yet to be fully determined.

“Gardaí will now try to track down his next of kin which may be problematic as despite the fact that he had been deceased for many months, no-one has made a missing person’s report,” the source added.

It remains unclear where in the house, the man’s body was discovered.

An inquest into his death will take place at a later date.