Kanturk Farm Shootings: A Timeline

Sunday night

Ann O’Sullivan, 60, and her son Mark, 26, are returning home after staying with neighbors in Castlemagner for a few days after Ms. O’Sullivan was discharged from Dublin hospital after an operation for a serious illness

Monday

6.40 a.m .: Mark O’Sullivan is shot dead in his bedroom in the family home in Assolas between Castlemagner and Kanturk. Ann O’Sullivan escapes the house and runs across the fields to a neighbor’s house to raise the alarm.

7am: Gardaí receives a 999 call stating that a man has been shot and may be dead. It is possible that up to two armed men barricade themselves in a siege-like situation in the house of the O’Sullivan family. Garda Press issued a statement calling for a media outage on the incident.

7.25 a.m .: Uniformed officers and plainclothes officers arrive at the entrance to the O’Sullivan’s home and speak to a neighbor, who tells them he heard two gunshots some time ago.

7.30 am: Gardaí declares the matter a critical firearms incident and erects a barrier 100 meters from the house and an outer cord over 1 km on all access roads to the farmhouse. A field commander is appointed by the Cork City Division. A trained negotiator tries to contact someone in the house and continues until morning to no avail.

8.15 a.m .: Members of the Armed Support Unit (ASU) from Cork arrive at the scene and take a stand at the inner cordon while the trained negotiator continues his efforts to get in touch with someone inside.

9 am: A team of HSE medics trained in the treatment of gunshot wounds and equipped with ballistic protective equipment, including bulletproof vests and helmets, are taken near the scene by the Irish Coast Guard helicopter, Rescue 116, from Dublin, which lands at Castlemagner GAA flown pitch.

The team is taken to Inner Lake Garda in a minibus, where they take positions with the armed members of the ASU, who maintain their position about 100 meters from the property.

In addition to the paramedics, Dr. Jason Van Der Velde and Dr. Adrian Murphy, who traveled from Cork and are on standby in the event of a critical medical emergency.

Noon: Emergency Response Unit (ERU) members arrive aboard an Air Corps helicopter from Dublin and are taken to the inner cordon, where they take up their positions at the local ASU and begin discussions with the local commander.

13 o’clock: After the negotiator has not contacted anyone in the house, it is decided to enter the farmhouse with the ERU taking the lead, followed by the ASU, with the trained paramedics following once the house has been declared safe

ERU members enter the ASU-backed farmhouse and discover the body of Mark O’Sullivan in a bedroom. He has suffered at least one gunshot wound and is pronounced dead by members of the medical team. Otherwise nobody is to be found in the house.

ERU and ASU members begin searching the adjacent sheds and outbuildings before continuing to search the fields immediately adjacent to the farmhouse.

1.40 p.m .: The Dublin-based Garda Air Support helicopter starts with an aerial view of the farm and is equipped with infrared heat detectors. He locates the bodies of two men near a fairy fortress, about four fields from the house.

ERU and ASU members are approaching the scene and members of the medical team declare Tadgh, 59, and Diarmuid O’Sullivan, 23, dead. There are two rifles in the fields next to them and the critical firearms incident is canceled.

14 o’clock: Gardaí initiates a criminal investigation and asks the Garda Technical Bureau in Dublin for the services of the State Pathologist’s Office and for specialist knowledge – especially experts from the ballistics department. Gardaí declares the farmhouse and the field to be separate crime scenes

3.30 p.m .: The Garda press office issued a statement lifting the media blackout and confirming the discovery of the bodies of three men, the withholding of the critical firearms incident and the initiation of a criminal investigation.

5.30 p.m .: The deputy state pathologist Dr. Margot Bolster arrives at the scene and conducts a preliminary investigation of Mark O’Sullivan’s body at the farm and an on-site preliminary investigation of Tadhg and Diarmuid O’Sullivan’s bodies.

21 clock: The bodies of all three deceased are removed from the scene and taken to Cork University Hospital, where Dr. Bolster should start postmortems at 9:30 a.m.

Tuesday

The Assolas scene remains cordoned off as Garda technical experts, including Garda ballistic experts, examine the farmhouse and field.