Grenade discovered during Westport home renovation

A WESTPORT man got an unexpected piece of living history on St Patrick’s Day when he uncovered what is believed to be a War of Independence-era grenade while renovating his family’s 1884 cottage.

David Noone was taking up the floors in the property located at Carrowbawn when he made the startling discovery at around 7.30pm. Beneath the bottom step of the stairs lay a small patch of exposed soil — the only area of the floor not covered by flagstone or concrete — and sitting within it was a round, heavy object with a distinctive protrusion on top.

“There was no flagstone or concrete in one small patch under the bottom step of the stairs, and that was down in the bit of soil,” David told The Mayo News. “There was nothing on it at all, whereas the rest of the floor was paved or concreted.”

He described the object as “round, hard, heavy, with a lump on top” — unmistakably grenade-like in appearance. Before the Gardaí arrived, someone had already carried the device outside and set it down — a nerve-wracking moment given what it turned out to be.

A photo of the grenade before it was destroyed

David called the Gardaí, who contacted the Army’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit. The bomb squad, having travelled from Cork that morning, arrived at the property around 12.30pm the following day. The attending army officer indicated, based on photographs taken beforehand, that the grenade most likely dated from the War of Independence-era.

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To safely remove the device, the team used a REACHER robot to lift the device and placed it in a ballistic blanket — designed to contain any shrapnel and blast effects in the event of detonation — before transporting it to nearby Bertra Beach to be destroyed. A video of the explosion is available on our website at mayonews.ie.

The REACHER robots are world leaders in their field and are made in Kerry. They are currently being used in Ukraine to remove mines.

Where did the grenade come from?
RETIRED Ordnance Officer Ray Lane explained the risks involved with such finds. “Both sides during the Civil War made homemade grenades, or they got access to a British factory-manufactured grenade,” he said. “Because it’s been there so long, the steel body would be rusted, and they’d be afraid to move it — if there’s a detonator inside, there’s mercury fulminate, and that doesn’t get any safer with time. Mercury fulminate becomes extremely sensitive with age.”

David believes the grenade may have belonged to Edward ‘Ned’ Moane, a local IRA member whose family lived next door to his grandfather’s family. “We are assuming it came from a relation of my grandfather, but from the previous generation,” he said. “The two families of Moanes lived next door to each other — but we will likely never know for sure."

Tom Derrig, Ned Moane and Joe Ring (Credit: Westport Historical Society)

It remains unclear whether this was a factory-made or home-made grenade.

James Kelly from the Westport Historical Society explains that if it was factory-made, “it could have been one that the IRA’s Active Service Unit had captured from Crown forces, as happened at the Carrowkennedy Ambush - at which Ned Moane played a leading role. Or the IRA might have taken it from an RIC barracks during a raid/attack. And it is possible that the IRA acquired some grenades through arms dealers. Or it might have been a grenade which had been deployed by Crown forces but which had failed to detonate. So there are a few possibilities as to the origins of this one.”

“However, If it was a grenade the IRA had made, it could have come from their grenade ‘factory’ at Castlebar but it would be impossible to say, as they were manufactured ad hoc by units and individual volunteers.”

For those interested, there is a grenade believed to have been captured at the Carrowkennedy Ambush on display in Clew Bay Heritage Centre.

‘All a bit bizarre’
DESPITE the drama, David took the discovery in his stride. “It was all a bit bizarre — a unique experience,” he said. “The house is steeped in history as it is, so it’s another story to go with it.” The renovation, which had included the removal of the cottage’s chimneys, was delayed but has since resumed.

It is not the first time such a relic has turned up in the Westport area. In 2007, local man Noel Gill stumbled upon a Mills 36 grenade half-buried in the ground at his site in Buckwaria while having a property valuation carried out. That device was also assessed as dating from around 1920 and was removed by the Army’s EOD unit before being destroyed at a firing range in Roscommon.

WATCH: Grenade found in Mayo destroyed by special Irish Army team

James Kelly from the Westport Historical Society told The Mayo News that finds like that are “relatively rare in this area.”
He notes another find in Lough Lannagh some years ago and also that some finds will not have come to public attention.
Reflecting on his forty year career in the Army, bomb disposal expert Ray Lane, which included defusing the 1,000kg bomb during the Troubles in 1978, says that “Grenades are still being found on the east coast— when I was serving, you’d come across an old grenade quite often,” he said. Many households, it seems, kept hidden caches of weapons during Ireland’s turbulent revolutionary period, and some are only now coming to light — one renovation at a time.

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