Army bomb disposal unit called to check find in farm bunker

THE Army bomb disposal unit was yesterday called to a farm near the Slieve Bloom mountains to examine items found in a bunker underneath the farmhouse.

The examination followed Thursday's discovery of bomb-making equipment in a shed attached to the property and a Garda search of the area continued yesterday.

Gardai removed most of the items in the bunker yesterday evening, but later called in the bomb squad to examine part of the find. The material is believed to consist mainly of mortar parts.

The bunker, which is opened by a trap door in the farmyard, but runs under the house, is understood to have been constructed about five or six years ago as the house was being built.

The farm, on the fringe of the mountains and near the village of Clonaslee, was secured tightly and media access was restricted to a viewing point higher in the mountains, about a quarter of a mile away.

The search continued in a recently built shed beside the house. Yesterday afternoon, gardai appeared to have removed a number of barrels from the building, but otherwise the operation was invisible to onlookers. Earlier in the day, the investigators had used a JCB which belonged to the farm, to excavate an area near the front of the house.

The wooded area in the mountains behind the house has been the scene of intensive arms search operations in recent years. Locals said that early last year the road up from the village was sealed by a Garda and Army checkpoint as the mountains were searched over a period of days.

Five people live in the farmhouse, including the owner of the property, who is in his 7Os. The others are his wife, his wife's sister, his nephew and an 18-year-old man who worked with his nephew.

The shed in which the bomb material is stored is about 80-90 feet long and, according to gardai, is compartmentalised into workshops. The bomb-making operation is understood to have been confined to only a section of the building.