The Limerick Blogger: latest Limerick news and Limerick events

A house in the Clarina area of County Limerick has been attacked by a man with a golf club, this causing over €7,000 worth of damage.

The attacker smashed five double-glazed windows earlier this week. This is the fourth time that the Barnes family, who live at the house, have been forced to replace windows. A total of €15,000 worth of damage has been caused to their home in all four attacks.

Speaking to the Star newspaper, Caroline Barnes, who was in the house with her sister at the time, said, “It was about 3am on Monday morning. And because this thing has happened in the past, we were still awake.”

Gardai were immediately alerted, and an investigation is ongoing, reports the paper.

A judge in London has ruled that a Limerick man was unfit for trial on arms conspiracy charges, today’s Star newspaper reports.

Lawrence McCarthy, of no fixed address, but originally from Southill in Limerick, was before Southwark Crown Court in London accused of conspiring to posess a firearm with intent to endanger life, and conspiring to posess a prohibited weapon.

The judge in the case directed the jury not to deliver any verdict against McCarthy based on medical and psychiatric reports which were submitted to the court.

According to the paper, two men and a woman were also convicted after a police raid on what is described as a “weapons supermarket” yielded machine guns, ammunition and “dum-dum” bullets, which cause horrendous injuries. The raid took place in the Hackney area of London last July.

A new hearing on the medical condition of Lawrence McCarthy will be held next month, and a decision on whether or not to hold a retrial will be made at this time.

Lawrence McCarthy is a relative of Anthony “Noddy” McCarthy, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of Kieran Keane, and is also a relative of Euromillions winner Delores McNamara

Gardai are appealing for information after the occourances of several disturbances which took place in the Limerick town of Askeaton in the early hours of this morning.

Numerous cars were damaged between 0100 and 0530 this morning in the town A grey Opel Kadett was also stolen by the vandals, however this car was later recovered.

Nine workers at a local factory are to go on the dole for several months so their colleagues can keep an extra €20 in their pockets.

Staff at Europaks Corrugated Cases were given the option to either work a four-and-a-half day week or give nine of their workmates the flick until April. They chose the latter. That is acording to the Limerick Leader City Edition.

73 of the staff at the company voted at a majority of 2 to 1 to reject the four-and-a-half day proposal as it contained a “flexibility clause.”

Calling the result “a disgrace,” one of the staff who was given the boot said that the flexibility clause was no big deal.

When tax is taken into consideration, the take home pay of the staff would have been reduced by as little as €20 a week and only until April when the company promised to re-hire the nine workers.

One worker said “I have a wife and children and can’t afford to sit around for weeks to see if they ring me back. ” He continued, “If I go and get a new job, and Europaks ring me in a few weeks to say come back, and I can’t, then I will default on my possible redundancy.

The laid off workers will only be entitled to redundancy if the company does not call them back after 13 weeks.

The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) today invited expressions of interest for Limerick’s local radio service. The license, currently operated by Live 95fm, has a duration of 10 years and the current license is due to expire in 2007. This means that, in effect, anybody can apply for and be granted this license and the current operators could lose out. In reality it is likely that Live 95fm will win the license again, once the BCI believe they are doing a good job and keeping to their license agreement. Live 95fm are owned by UTV Radio who also own Cork’s 96 and 103fm, Q102 in Dublin, LMFM in Louth and many radio licenses in the UK.

The BCI will soon also seek expressions of interest for a new regional youth driven station for the Mid West region, to include Limerick. This is a new license aimed at the 15-34 age group, only one of which currently exists in the country and is operated by Beat FM covering the South East area. This license will cover counties Kerry, Limerick, Clare, North Tipperary and South West Laois.

A €6 million package offered to nearby residents should save Limerick’s rugby home.

Residents living next to the home of Munster Rugby have agreed to sell their homes for double their market value to the IRFU, clearing the way for Thomond Park to be expanded.

The houses at Knockalisheen Road need to be demolished to facilitate Thomond Park being turned 90 degrees.

The initial offer of €200,000 per house at number 13 to 28 Knockalisheen Road was rejected in November thus putting the whole plan to expand Thomond Park in doubt.

The IRFU are also in negotiations with Limerick City Council with regard to apartments, which are also located at Knockalisheen Road. These negotiations are said to be going well.

Architects and stadium planners have told the IRFU that the demolition of the Knockalisheen Road houses and apartments will be essential to turn Thomond Park into a 28,000 all-seater stadium. At present Thomond Park has a capacity of 13,000..

The male half of Limerick’s answer to Bonnie and Clyde has been sentenced to four years for the kidnapping and robbery of a biochemist.

Ray Constable (18) of “no fixed abode” was before Limerick Circuit Court after he was arrested on foot of a bench warrant which was issued last week.

After hearing evidence from Det. Sgt. Eamon O’Neill, Judge Carol Moran said that the victim was effectively “kidnapped” by Constable and his then girlfriend Amanda Coleman. Ms Coleman’s sentencing has been put back to next year as her crimes were not as serious as Constable’s.

The crime occurred on April 2nd of last year when the victim, Oliver Quinn (25) tagged along with the criminal duo to what he was lead to believe was a house party in Castletroy. Mr. Quinn, who is understood to have been “fairly drunk” at the time, was forced to hand over his ATM card and PIN number to the two, after which, €700 was withdrawn from his bank account.

An application by Brendan Nix, representing Mr. Constable to have the sentence backdated to April 2005, which was agreed by Judge Carol Moran. The judge also recommended that the sentence be served anywhere but Limerick Prison.

Authorities at Limerick Prison are enlisting the help of some high-tech equipment to detect users of mobile phones within the prison.

The Limerick Leader reports that criminals are using mobile phones to keep tabs on and to direct their nefarious affairs from behind the prison walls.

“We find them everywhere in their cells. There is not a place where they will not try and hide them.” one prison officer told the paper.

A spokesperson for the prison dismissed claims that up to eight mobile phones are being confiscated every week. he did say however that an electronic transmitter had been employed to detect the use of mobile phones within the prison, by picking up their signal.

An unnamed source told the paper that phones are found inside toilet rolls and behind TV sets in cells. some of smarter criminals have rewired PlayStation consoles to act as mobile phone chargers.

PlayStation 2 consoles are banned from the prison as they contain a modem, however, the older PlayStation ! console is allowed.

Sale rugby star Sebastian Chabal thought his day couldn’t get any worse when his team were hammered by Munster on saturday, but they did.

When himself and his team went out on the town to drown their sorrows, Chabal manageged to get into a row at a city nightclub.

It is reported in the Limerick Leader that the “Caveman” is understood to have said something to a woman at the nightclub, which did not go down well with her boyfriend. It is then when things are said as have gotten “ugly.”

Bouncers and team mates had to break up the altercation. One eye-witness quipped, “most rugby players would cringe at taking the Caveman on, but it was all over very quickly.” He continued, “Poor old Chabal, first he was flattened on the pitch by the Munster players, and then again outside a nightclub by a Limerickman. It wasn’t the best of weekends for him.”

A Garda spokesperson said that he had heard of the incident, however he could not comment on whether or not an official complaint had been made.

Gardai in Kilaloe are investigating a raid on a post office in Whitegate, near Scarrif in County Clare.

The postmistress who lives in a house attached to the post office, was tied up and baracaded into the bathroom of her home while three raiders ramsacked the post office at 0300 hrs this morning. Breakingnews.ie reports that the raiders got away with a “small quantity of cash.”

She was only discovered at 0800 hrs when her sister called to the house.