Former IRA hunger striker, Celtic Tiger property tycoon and now bankrupt builder Tom McFeely was in such a hurry to get out of his former Dublin home he may well have left something behind: €140,000 (£118,000) hidden inside his old bath.

Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) was called in over the weekend to investigate the discovery of the hidden cash. It was found on Friday by a plumber renovating McFeely’s old house on Ailesbury Road in the swanky Dublin 4 area.

The plumber contacted the National Assets Management Agency (Nama) – the organisation that seized control of thousands of properties left abandoned by builders when the Irish housing boom went bust. Nama owns McFeely’s house in what is still one of Dublin’s most expensive areas. At one time, the ex-IRA man’s home was valued at €15m, but it was placed on the market by Nama for €3m.

Cab, which was set up to seize the assets and properties of criminals after the state crackdown over the murder of investigative journalist Veronica Guerin in 1996, has deposited the money in a Dublin bank pending its investigation.

McFeely took part in the first IRA hunger strike for political status in the Maze prison in 1980, spending 53 days without food before it was called off. A native of Dungiven in County Derry, he was sentenced for offences including trying to kill police officers and carrying out a post office robbery in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.

In the 21st century, McFeely has been accused by residents of a private flat complex in Dublin of carrying out the collective robbery of their life savings.

McFeely’s Prior Hall apartment block was so hastily constructed during the property boom of the Celtic Tiger years that Dublin Corporation (now Dublin city council) has now ruled it unsafe for habitation. McFeely’s reputation as a builder was shot to pieces after the council concluded that Priory Hall was a fire trap, and residents were forced to leave their homes.

McFeely and his business partner Larry O’Mahony borrowed €186m from Irish Nationwide Building Society at the peak of Ireland’s property boom, and these loans are now controlled by Nama.

Read more: The Guardian