Detectives with experience of criminal investigations are to assist Galway gardai with their inquiry into the fire on Inisbofin yesterday in which three elderly sisters died.
Garda forensic experts travelled from Dublin to examine the scene, which was described as "suspicious" by a team headed by Supt Mick Curley of Clifden, Co Galway.
The assistance of the National Criminal Bureau of Investigations had been sought, according to Chief Supt Tom Monaghan of the Galway division.
Gardai said last night that they were following no definite line of inquiry, but added they were conducting house-to-house inquiries on the island, off the Connemara coast, in an effort to establish the cause of the blaze.
They were unable to confirm earlier reports that a man, believed to be a visitor, had been seen causing trouble on the island on Monday night.
The three women who died have been named as Mrs Eileen Coyne (82), a widow and owner of the house in which the fire started, and her sisters, Mrs Brigid McFadden (76) and Ms Margaret Concannon (72). Mrs Coyne had no children, while Mrs McFadden, who lived in Langley in England, had three children. Their younger sister, Margaret, was unmarried and lived in Reading. The three sisters had participated in a family reunion on Monday night in nearby Murray's Hotel, when they met a cousin who had come to trace family roots.
Several personal belongings found outside the building during an examination of the scene led the gardai to describe the situation as "suspicious". A camera and a cap were found on the road outside the house. The camera is believed to have been owned by one of the sisters.
A review of fire services provided by local authorities on offshore islands has been ordered by the Minister of State for Arts, Heritage, the Gaeltacht and the Islands, Mr Eamon O Cuiv.
Galway Co Council has undertaken to carry out this review on all four islands within its remit immediately. Mr O Cuiv visited the island yesterday morning to express his condolences to the family of the three women.
He told The Irish Times he would look favourably on any submission from any island to provide fire equipment and services which could be run on a voluntary basis, with appropriate training. He said he had every confidence in the islanders' ability to do this, given their resourcefulness. A fire service has recently been provided on Inis Mor, the largest of the three Aran islands, but other islands do not have such provision. Last year, Mr O Cuiv established a special fund within his department, to assist in additional services not covered by the Department of the Environment or local authorities.
He has also been undertaking a review of ferry and air transport services serving offshore islands.
Ironically, the fire service issue was not raised at a three-hour meeting which the Minister held with the Irish Islands' Federation, Comdhail Oileain na hEireann, earlier this week.
Many other issues, such as hazards posed by uninsured cars and improvements in transport, were identified as the priorities. Ms Patricia Quinn of the federation said the fire service issue had tended to arise in the context of appeals for a general improvement in local authority services.
Like most offshore islands, Inisbofin has no fire service, and about 30 to 40 people, including two of the sisters' three brothers, were forced to watch helplessly as smoke engulfed the residence near the harbour. Efforts to put out the blaze with extinguishers and buckets of water over a two hour period proved fruitless.
The secretary of the Inishbofin Development Association, Ms Joanne Elliott, said two of the three lives might have been saved if the islanders' appeals for a fire service, or fire equipment, had been met by the county council. Islanders had been calling for such a service for the past 21 years, she said, as there had been two previous fires - neither of which claimed lives.
However, the chief fire officer for Galway county, Mr John O'Shaughnessy, told The Irish Times there may have been little that anybody could do to save the women, even if there had been a fire service on the island.
Mr O'Shaughnessy, who went to the island yesterday, said: "From the information we got from the islanders, the fire seems to have had a strong hold on the house when it was first noticed."
He said it was a very poignant scene as it was obvious from where the bodies were found that two of the women had been trying to save the third sister.
It is believed the three women were trying to escape when they were overcome by the blaze, which is believed to have started shortly before 2 a.m. yesterday. The owner, Mrs Eileen Coyne, who used to run a shop in the house, slept upstairs in the west gable. Her two sisters were sleeping downstairs.
Mrs Coyne's body was found at the foot of the stairwell, near the back door where her sisters' bodies were recovered. The remains were removed by boat yesterday to the mainland and taken to University College Hospital Galway for a post mortem.
The island, with a population of 200, is a popular tourist destination.
The fire is the worst tragedy to hit the island in many years. Some elderly islanders still have memories of the last most serious accident - the deaths of 25 Connemara fishermen, including nine from Inishbofin in the Cleggan disaster of 1927.
