A “reclusive” woman who lay undiscovered in her Cork city home for almost a year after her death had repeatedly rebuffed her family’s efforts to keep in contact, an inquest has heard.
Joyce O’Mahony (58) lived alone at the family home at Emsleigh, Brookfield Lawn, the Lough, where her badly decomposed remains were found on May 21st last, some 11 months after any confirmed activity on her part, Cork Coroner’s Court heard.
In a statement, Ms O’Mahony’s siblings – Jakki, Peter and Paul – said they repeatedly tried to keep in contact with Ms O’Mahony after she returned from London in 2010 to look after their mother, Patricia, following the death of their father, Timothy.
However, they said Ms O’Mahony changed the lock on the front door for no apparent reason within months, had the landline phone disconnected and took control of their mother’s mobile phone.
They said they could only visit their mother by appointment, though their sister did permit them to tend to the front garden after it became overgrown.
In late 2016, their mother’s dementia was advancing rapidly and it became increasingly difficult for the doctor and health workers to gain access to her.
The siblings decided to have their mother placed in full-time care and made repeated attempts to get Ms O’Mahony to discuss this, and her own future, with them. She would not co-operate when they sought documents to avail of the Fair Deal scheme.
Ms O’Mahony visited their mother just once during her four years in a nursing home and when she died in 2021, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, they kept their sister informed of funeral arrangements and organised transport for her, but she did not engage or attend.
“We made attempts to reach out to her through ‘on spec’ calls to the house and with notes under the front door but to no avail ... It was with great sadness then that we learned in May 2024 that Joyce had been tragically found dead in the family home,” they said.
Vermin control expert Eoin Grant told the inquest he was engaged to solve a problem for Ms O’Mahony’s neighbour and he believed her home was derelict. He gained entry and discovered her body in a downstairs room.
A neighbour, Gerard O’Connor, said Ms O’Mahony was very reclusive, never had visitors and only seemed to come out at around 8pm to go to the local Supervalu. He said he last saw her alive in October 2022.
Garda Kate Kelly, who investigated Ms O’Mahony’s death, said the deceased was not in receipt of any social welfare payments and there was no bank activity after a €50 withdrawal on October 20th, 2021.
Garda Kelly there was no food in the fridge but there were empty food cartons in the kitchen with a best by date of June 26th, 2023. These matched a Supervalu receipt June 23rd, 2023, which was the last evidence gardaí could find of any activity by Ms O’Mahony.
Dr Claire McCarthy, a GP, said in a statement that Ms O’Mahony was her patient from 2010 to 2018, when she stopped attending. Dr McCarthy said she was “a very strange and reclusive person” who informed her she had fallen out with her siblings.
She suspected Ms O’Mahony might be suffering from depression and prescribed her antidepressants, but they had no effect. She also thought Ms O’Mahony might be suffering from a personality disorder.
Pathologist Dr Asmaa Abbelsadek said Ms O’Mahony, whose identity had to be confirmed by DNA tests, showed no sign of trauma associated with a third party. She said the remains were too badly decomposed to identify a cause of death as she had been dead for at least six months.
Coroner Philip Comyn returned an open verdict in what he described as a very sad case.
He said Ms O’Mahony’s story highlighted the difficulties families face when somebody embarks on a path of self-isolation and rebuffs efforts to stay connected.
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