Gardaí are today continuing to investigate the death of two men in Co Carlow yesterday.
Gardaí believe one of the men who died in the early hours of yesterday in Co Carlow shot dead his 71-year-old brother-in-law and then rang the emergency services before taking his own life.
Sources familiar with the case said while the investigation was still in its early stages and the crime scenes to be examined were numerous, it appeared the dead men had been in dispute over a farm. The man who carried out the attack had also been suffering from depression.
The dead men have been named locally as George Rothwell (71) and his brother-in-law Michael Jordan (51).
The men lived in substantial adjacent farms about 6km from Bagenalstown in the direction of Borris.
The Irish Times understands the emergency services received a call at about 3.30am yesterday from a man believed to be Mr Jordan informing them that a barn beside Mr Rothwell's large Ballycormack farmhouse was on fire.
When a fire brigade reached the scene, the barns were ablaze. Gardaí then found the remains of Mr Rothwell in a downstairs room in his house. A shotgun lay under his body and he had been shot.
When the fire was brought under control in the outhouses and they were investigated, Mr Jordan's body was found in a barn just before 9am. He had taken his own life.
Mr Jordan appears to have shot Mr Rothwell, then called the emergency services to report a fire in the barn before setting that fire and taking his own life in the barn as it burned.
Mr Jordan's wife Hilda was a sister of Mr Rothwell. When she awoke yesterday morning and could not find her husband in their home she apparently believed he had been tending to calving cattle through the night.
However, when she went to investigate his whereabouts on the farm she realised there had been a fire at the barns close to her brother's house, just over 1km from her own home.
As she walked towards the house she met a neighbour and gardaí on the land, and was apparently informed that her brother and husband were dead.
Garda sources said she was in a state of extreme distress throughout yesterday, and has not yet been interviewed about what may have led to the events in the early hours of the morning.
She apparently slept through the shooting and fire.
She and her husband did not have any children. Her brother never married and also had no children.
There was nobody else in either house when the apparent murder-suicide occurred.
Gardaí said while a land dispute was being investigated as the motive for the shooting of Mr Rothwell, this was only one line of inquiry.
However, the same sources said they were not looking for anyone else in connection with the events that claimed the lives of both men.
The sources also said the shotgun found with Mr Rothwell's remains was a legally held weapon.
Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis carried out preliminary examinations of both bodies at the scene yesterday before they were removed for full postmortems, due to be conducted today.
Members of the Garda Technical Bureau spent yesterday at the farms, and examined Mr Rothwell's house and the fire-damaged barn where Mr Jordan's remains were found.
