A murder investigation has been launched after a 60-year-old woman and a four-year-old boy died in a fire in County Offaly in the Republic of Ireland.
Emergency services extinguished the blaze at a house in the town of Edenderry at about 8pm on Saturday but were unable to save the woman and child.
The victims were later identified as Mary Holt and Tadhg Farrell.
Another woman in her 50s escaped the fire and is being treated in hospital with serious injuries. Postmortems were due to be carried out on Sunday.
Supt Liam Geraghty confirmed that a murder investigation was under way during a press conference on Sunday, describing the crime as a “reckless, callous and murderous attack on a family home”.
He said that the house is believed to have been attacked by “a person or persons unknown at this time”, and that the fire was deliberately started.
Police are appealing for anyone who was in the vicinity of Castleview Park housing estate on Saturday evening to come forward with information.
The Irish minister for justice, Jim O’Callaghan, condemned the “deliberate callous attack” on the house. “There is no place in a civilised society for such heinous violence,” he said, urging any witnesses to support the police investigation.
Local Independent Ireland councillor, Fergus O’Donnell, who knew the victims, told Irish broadcaster RTÉ that the whole town was “absolutely distraught”.
He said: “The families are ordinary, salt of the earth people, hard working and for something that just to happen, it’s just unreal.”
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