A 21-MONTH-OLD boy and a man in his 60s were killed in separate farm incidents in Co Meath and Co Tipperary yesterday.
Gardaí say they are treating as “a tragic accident” the death of an infant on a Meath farm yesterday morning.
The boy is understood to have drowned after falling into a rainwater lagoon on the farm near the Newgrange visitors’ centre, outside Donore.
The lagoon, buried in the ground, is believed to have been around 1½ metres deep.
“There are no suspicious circumstances and we believe this was a tragic accident,” a Garda spokesman said.
The Health and Safety Authority has begun an investigation.
Independent councillor Frank Godfrey, who lives in Donore, said “the village is shocked and deeply saddened”.
In the other incident, a Co Tipperary farmer died after falling from a roof on his farm yesterday morning.
Eddie Dillon (67), a single man, lived alone at Cooleagh, about three miles from Fethard in Co Tipperary and close to the headquarters of Coolmore stud farm.
He was working on a shed with another man and is thought to have fallen about eight feet from an asbestos roof after slipping.
He may have hit his head against an old tractor battery that was lying on the ground.
The incident occurred at about 9.30am.
The other man called emergency services but Mr Dillon was pronounced dead at the scene.
Gardaí in Fethard and the Health and Safety Authority are both investigating the incident.