A torn-up letter from a reclusive husband and wife whose bodies lay undiscovered in their Tipperary home for 18 months shows their regret about moving to Ireland.

Nicholas and Hillary Smith were found dead at their home in Cloneen, Tipperary in June 2022.

Postmortem examinations suggested they had died a year and a half earlier and had lain undiscovered ever since.

Neighbours believed the elderly English couple had left Ireland and moved to France and it was only when locals grew suspicious about cars parked out the back that Gardaí made a welfare check.

When they entered the house Gardaí found Nicholas in his bed and Hillary in an armchair in the living room.

On The Pat Kenny Show this morning, Irish Independent Legal Affairs Editor Shane Phelan said the grim discovery was “very shocking for the community”.

“An inquest delivered open verdicts because the precise circumstances surrounding their deaths were not entirely clear,” he said.

“There is no foul play or anything like that suspected here but just exactly what led them to remain in the house was never really fully explained.”

A house in Cloneen near the Tipperary-Kilkenny border where the bodies of two people were discovered, 21-06-2022. Image: PA Images / Alamy

Before they died, the couple had written to a neighbour saying they were selling up and moving.

They also cancelled their Sky TV package, cancelled their bins and emailed their doctor saying they would no longer need medical services.

When Gardaí arrived, they needed the services of a locksmith because glue had been poured into the locks.

“All we can do is speculate as to what the significance of those things is but yeah, all very strange, all very curious and just some of the many, many quirks of this whole case,” said Mr Phelan.

'We should never have set foot in Ireland'

Mr Phelan said Gardaí also found a letter in the house that had been written by Hillary Smith and signed by husband and wife.

The letter was torn up and thrown in the bin but was pieced back together by a Garda handwriting expert.

In the letter, Hillary writes ‘we should never have set foot in Ireland’ – and takes particular issue with the Irish healthcare system.

“She writes about the lack of trust they had in physicians,” said Mr Phelan.

“She says they had excellent healthcare where they lived elsewhere in the world, and they wished they had never come to Ireland.”

A house in Cloneen near the Tipperary-Kilkenny border where the bodies of two people were discovered, 21-06-2022. Image: PA Images / Alamy

He said Nicholas had previously discharged himself from hospital and refused medical treatment shortly after he was admitted with urgent chest pains.

He was also prescribed anti-depressants.

Hillary, meanwhile, had a history of rheumatoid arthritis and hypertension.

Mr Phelan said the letter makes particular reference to Vernon Coleman, a retired doctor and well-known English conspiracy theorist.

“In this letter Hillary Smith describes him as a courageous man who saw what so many missed,” he said.

COVID

The letter was written at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, on Christmas Eve 2020.

“It doesn’t solve the mystery but what it does do is offer some clues as to the state of mind that Hillary and Nicholas Smith were in around that time,” said Mr Phelan.

“We knew they were reclusive, we knew they didn’t have much interaction with their neighbours, and we knew they had more or less cut themselves off from their families – they hadn’t seen them in many, many years.”

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