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Disasters and Accidents

Historical stories concerning fires, floods, transport crashes, industrial accidents, storms, building collapses and other disasters affecting Limerick and Ireland between 1900 and 2000, including their causes, consequences and impact on local communities.

Fatal Confusion

Cappamore and the surrounding district lost a medical practitioner in early February 1900 when Dr Charles Philip Tennant died after accidentally swallowing carbolic acid during an evening visit to a family at Rath. Tennant served patients across the Cappamore and Murroe area, where a country doctor might travel considerable distances to reach sick people in their homes. The surviving reports describe no deliberate act and no dispute over the cause. An ordinary medical call ended in tragedy because two liquids carried to the house were confused, turning a customary gesture of hospitality into a fatal emergency.