Polish man set on fire by youths

What were these morons thinking?

Its time to get out of this city. I worry about raising my kids here. They deserve better.

If they are caught give them mandatory life sentences. (Use your own vulgar words here)

An absolute disgrace.

Animals should be locked away from normal people for the rest of their lives when caught.

john wayne

I know what you're saying but where would you go, unreal crimes are rife in Ireland in this day and age.

im speechless

What chance that they will be caught?

A man was set alight in his own driveway in Dooradoyle about five years ago & nobody was caught.

You can't punish these poor individuals. Society has failed these young people. If we were more caring and provided them alternative methods for enjoyment then they would not have to resort to anti-social behaviour such as this. This is a cry for help and we would be failing these poor children (for really that is all they are) if we did not listen to their plea. We shouldn't jail them we should sit them down and learn from them. You and I are to blame not them.

AND IF YOU BELIEVE HALF OF THAT PILE OF SHITE I'VE A WHOLE BOOK OF FAIRY TALES I CAN READ TO YOU.

where did this happen? scumbags!

RTE website says it happened on the Dock Road. er man was going to a friends house in Dooradoyle when it happened.

colm i was just about to give you a nasty comment but realised your a bit of a joker like me
god almighty what is limerick becomming at all
what did this man do to deserve this i presume he didint know who his attackers were
between shootings and attacks its going to become a no go area its gone to the stage now that im not lookin forward to my regular visit home anymore and id be afraid to bring any of my friends to limerick for fear of anything bad happening nobody is safe its gone completly out of control the guars dont seem to be able to control it so as ive said before something serious and tough needs to be brought in or limerick city will be no more for the decent citizens

This is just insane, an innocent man just making his way home gets set on fire! Whats next? I love this City and I'll always defend it vigorously but I have to say, recent events are really starting to get me down!

just another comment squid fair play to you for putting this on the blogger site as ive just had alook at the live 95 fm site and not a word about it are they all asleep down there or what
does anyone know what was the motive or as usual just the wrong place at the wrong time
and i thought that that area was very quite and respectable
wonder are these some of the little scumbags who have been rehoused as part of limerick citys plan to put people from certain estates out to raheen

brilliant one commenter de-humanises them both treating them like they treated the polish man, and takes away the responsibilty from them and then colm makes a brilliant sarcastic retort against something nobody has said well done him!?

We need to face facts. Limerick is a scary place to be. A few years ago if you were not one of the "families" you were left alone. However a side effect of the relative lull in feud activities is that the city centre streets are increasingly dominated by small gangs of "hoodies" with vicious memberships. No one can honestly say that when they see two or three of these creatures skulking in their direction that they don't tense up. This incident will only increase the tension. Shoppers (and shops) are abandoning the city centre for retail parks on the outskirts where security guards patrol the grounds and CCTV is used to identify potential threats to respond to not like in the city centre where it almost seems like CCTV is used to guide the Gardai away from trouble.

Go to estates in the outskirts and the situation is even more serious. Anti social behaviour is almost a standard pastime for teenagers in Moyross, Southhill, “De Island”, St Marys Park, O'Malley Park, Roxboro, Rathbane. In the worst cases residents live in little criminal dictatorships like some form of medieval feudal village where the strongest thug is the lord. The Gardai only go into these areas to “investigate” the most serious incidents and even then get in and out as quickly as possible preferably before it gets dark. We’ve even seen incidents where people were shot 20 meters from armed Gardai who “didn’t see anything”.

In industrial or retail estates within skulking distance of these slum estates it has become the norm to pay protection money to the gangs. One “firm” began the practice back in the 90s and would stick an empty box with their name on your wall in exchange for money. Now the “firms” don’t even bother with the empty box. You pay this week or you get robbed next week.

Meanwhile areas like Dooradoyle, Castletroy and the Ennis Road are adopting a seige mentality in the face of the council buying 500 houses around the city to facilitate the regeneration of Southhill and Moyross. There is a hysterical fear that if one of your neighbours puts their house up for sale then a month later you'll have a stream of junkies riding their ponies up to the house to buy drugs from the caravan in the front garden. It might be over the top but in public this dinner party set would have normally prattled on that things in Limerick aren't really as bad and it's all a media hype but now in practice when faced with the prospect of having just one family from Southhill move into their area their true feelings about life in Limerick come to the surface and they are up in arms in the media.

The regeneration of Southhill and Moyross has come about 10 years too late. The generation of teenage thugs who first earned Limerick a bad reputation 15 years ago have been replaced by a generation whose viciousness is more fitting to Baghdad.

Limerick is no longer a nice place to live. It is a place to exist but not to live.

Now no doubt there will be a flood of reply posts trotting out all the normal PR line that "Limerick isn't so bad" and "It's all a media hype" but the silent majority will nod, keep their heads down and pray their neighbour doesn’t put their house on the market.

This just confirms what I've been trying to ignore. Limerick is completely lawless and dangerous. It has become glaringly apparent that there is a severe lack of garda here. In the 2 years I have lived and worked in Limerick City cente, I have probably seen 4-5 guards in total in all that time on the streets.

There is no obvious police presence. It really feels like a free-for-all city. Anything could happen here and there's nobody to stop it. It is just coincidence that the city hasn't fallen into complete civil warfare.
I moved here to escape the Dublin rat race. Being from the Northside of Dublin, I knew all too well what unfounded bad-press is all about, so I believed the media when it said Limerick wasn't as bad as it's made out...WRONG! It is actually worse.

This is a forgotten city where the good people are terrified of the ever present animalism of the few psychopaths. This is a city with a lot of rapes and vicious random attacks on men and women. You can actually feel the bad vibes when walking through the city.

I've given this city 2 years, that is way too much time. I'm outta here. No place to live safely and forget raising kids. It's gone beyond help. I wish Limerick luck with the regeneration, but unless it actually admits that it is dire need of help it's a wasted exercise. Limerick needs help, now.

Mike I have to agree 100% with what you have said. The truth hurts all Limerick people, but it has to be said. I was close to the area of the shooting on Friday night in my car as I came home from work. Unbelievable is all I can say. I to have moved out of the city to the country with my family as I feel it is not safe to bring up kids in the city I love . I have a friend who is moving to Canada because he says Ireland has become a country of muggers, murders and drug dealers and no longer likes living here. We gained much in the Celtic tiger years ,but we lost even more.

totally agree with you mike and im glad to be out of limerick even though i will always see it as my home

well said mike

[post removed ... abusive]

Attack the ball clio, not the man.

Totally agree with Mike, Just about to buy my first house and I am petrified that everything I have saved for will go up in smoke if I make a bad choice about location.
Probabaly going to buy a tiny apartment in the most expensive part of town in the hope that I dont get landed next to any of these "regeneration Projects". I fell sorry for people who have saved for houses and then people like these assholes get moved in beside them for free.
People have lost all humanity when they can set an innocent person on fire. If money was spent actually locking these people up for an amount of time relevant to their crime then we may have some hope of saving the city.

Unfortunately Mike, it's difficult to contradict your post, suffice to say that these little dictators are now virtually immune from punishment. We may not like it, but either we start sacrificing some of our civil liberties soon or else these little bastards and their spawn will make our life a living hell.
For a start, and end to the abuse of free legal aid and making these scum serve long hard sentences. An end to solicitors making a fortune from the revolving door system. A real in-touch-with-reality Judiciary would help. And, (knowing I'll offend the PC mob here) sterilising habitual criminals would help insofar as the next generation of scum is concerned. A real European style police service would be nice, but what chance Garda reform ?

Incidentally, it's not the first instance of someone being seriously assaulted in this area late at night. As the Ballinacurra Road is wide open with plenty of hiding places in the laneways leading to Prtland Park and the open countryside behind the house offer plenty of escape routes.

great comment mike

If I knew the scumbags responsible for this awful act. I would pour an inflammable liquid over each one and let the bastard burn 'till he looks grotesque and feels pain for months to come. It's unforgivable what these cowards did to the poor fellow.

Sad.I know there are some group of hoodies hanin'around late in city centre but I didn't suppose they're dangerous especially when it comes to Polish.They sholud jail them but probbaly it'll be dificult to catch them now.Limerick is a not bad place 4 living but when you want to raise yout children then it's better to go somewhere else:/.Of course it happens everywhere but probably that's\the first act of agression against Polish in Ireland.May bring further conseqvences... hopefully won't.

I'll defend my city always but when this happens you begin to lose hope.
People want pricks like this to be put away but we all know that they'll walk.
Pains me to say it but Limerick just has alot more skangers than other cities.

Wojtek, I doubt if these scum cared whether their victim was Polish, Irish, Russian or African. He was, as we seem to constantly hear these days "In the wrong place at the wrong time". Yet one more innocent victim who happened to walk into a group of scumbags intent on causing hurt for no other reason than what they perceive as "fun". These hoodie types can do what they want, when they want, for, as Glenda pointed out, seeing a Garda on foot-patrol in Limerick is akin to and as rare as winning the Lotto.
Unless your vehicle tax is out of date that is.

Of course, if these scum are caught, they will have every facility offered to them and defence lawyers will be quick to point out to caring yet sensitive judges how deficient their clients lives are. Maybe the old ADHD excuse will raise its head. In the meantime, the city remains under policed to the point of ludicrousness. People are voting with their feet now and getting out. For all our developments we have an underclass who respect no-one or nothing, callously undermining everyone's quality of life. A dis-interested set of politicians who say all the right things and do absolutely nothing. This regeneration will be a joke if they think houses are the problem and ignore the people who are behind the crime wave. And like Nero, we have Garda Superintendents who wax lyrical about "responsible people" who are in fact drug-dealing murderous scumbags, in a futile effort to placate and suck up to such factions.

While Limerick has these problems in abundance, the rest of the country doesn't lag behind. So much so, I would advise people to log on to Eurostat where crime statistics show just how crime-ridden we (Ireland) have become. I would rather stay in Limerick, but fear I will eventually have to decide on moving to another country, should the scale of lawlessness continue at its current rate throughout this non-policed State.

In the meantime, Wojtek, I wish your compatriot a full recovery from his ordeal.

This is the address of article about it in 'Polsh website in Limerick' http://www.limerick.com.pl/viewtopic.php?t=871 If you want to comment that press 'Odpowiedz' below the posts,then fill-in:
Uzytkownik-User(guest),
Temat-Topic and write your opinion (in box) then press Wyslij.
thx...

before we all denounce limerick and all there may have been no limerick people involved who knows
just guessn like but its a severe thing to do to a complete stranger whatever about the old days of a punch or whatever
hope he gets better soon.

Maybe you are right but as we all know Polish is the biggest community just after Irish now in Ireland so that's why it may be noisy about that now but I'm sharing your point of view Hoof I mean it was a person at the wrong time in the wrong place.I will check the Eurostat but the same s..t is happening now in Poland and probably in other Countries as well.It was always but now I think it's getting dramaticaly bigger when you want to compare with 40,60 years ago.It's going in the wrong way.Thx for your wishes (in his name).

[Mod edit] Removed ... Speculative,

A man remains in a critical condition in Cork University Hospital after he was set alight by a gang of youths in Limerick last night. So it's a gang of youths,not men.

Ter87: will it make you feel better if this 'gang' was Polish? Or maybe - will it makw you feel better because victim was Polish, not Irish?

Hoof, unfortunatly I have to say I agree with you. I say unfortunatly, as it is terrible it has come to this. Not the first person I have heard advocating sterilisation but its not a starter whatsoever.

The rest? Cant agree more, end free legal aid, jail these people more often (in less plush envirnoments but we should at least be able to give them a toilet, unlike now) and take the kids off people with repeat offences and place them into care. Dont allow another gereration to fester.

[mod edit] Removed quoted text

Which was what I was thinking. I think it's Ireland in general, if it's not a child killer in cork, it's a child killer in Galway, killing a girl when she was in the country 5 minutes.

Limerick people used to love pointing the finger at Southill, the rest of the country did the same with Limerick, let's stop this blame game and sort out this corrupt country and take it back for the working class.


Get the cops out of the office and on the beat, change the laws and make the judges stick to them.

I seem to recall two children being burned a few year ago by teenagers from there own peer group! Millie was one I cant remember the little boys name? so it would seem its not the first time it has happened.
I used to shudder when people reffered to limerick as STAB city now its a relief that they haven't gotten a better update of us.

I am so sorry but I think the regeneration generation is awful. People that worked hard through the 80's to buy a house to bring there kids into a better enviroment .Prior to your so called celtic tiger young couple found it very hard to better themselves, now to have someone put next store to you for free its very very unfair.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0114/limerick.html

Wojtek(polish):"So it’s a gang of youths,not men"

[mod edit] And we don't have time for people who don't have time for people simply because of their nationality. Read the rules before commenting again.

young men could be called youths. some people are being pedantic now.

Ter87's first comment on the possibility that it was Polish men who were in the gang was getting at an increasing problem of immigrants bringing conflicts from their home land with them to Ireland. There isn't a scrap of evidence that this case was such an example but it certainly is a problem. However his second comment telling Wojtek to "read English" and "I don't have time for polish people" unfortunately shows that his original comment was not an attempt to discuss a new aspect of criminality in Ireland. Rather it was base racism.

As unemployment rises I'm afraid there will be an increasing trend among Irish people to believe that everything was perfect on this Island before the "non-nationals" (how can you not have a nation??) arrived. The skulking gangs will find their numbers swelled by individuals such as Ter87 who are out for revenge against the immigrant population. Revenge for what won't be clear but they will be out for revenge none the less.

This gang of youths has been a problem in this area for some time now. Anyone recall Halloween and the throwing of rocks at a bus? They should have been dealt with then by the authorities, affirmative action and no excuses. What kind of mentality have these youths got. What kind of upbringing instills these virtues its horrendous. Life is harder to live when you hear stories like this because you could easily be the next statistic of these brutal crimes.

ya it really depends on where you walk in limerick WRONG PLACE WRONG TIME,seems to happen quite a lot where there are no cctv they should be locked up i dont understand the mentality of giving scummers a cup of fucking COCOA and some FREE HOUSING FOR WHAT?BURNING SOME1 ALIVE?Its no wonder we got little scummers jumping off the boat running into great ireland years ago these fuc*ers would be chopped up and put in a ditch!

shove a tree up where the sun dont shine you hippy dippy reta*rd

Let's face it folks, the problem in Limerick and most other estates throughout the length and breath of the county is the subsidising of teenage mothers. They neglect and shout and roar at their kids -be honest, we've all seen it. I'm the last one to point the finger at single mothers and we don't want to go back to the 1950s, but when those little guys grow up they turn into the bastards who are wrecking our City.

Solution is simple. If you are 16- and get pregnant, if you don't demonstrate adequate care for the Child then it should be taken off you, and all allowances stopped. There are plenty of people who would give a young child a happy and supportive home. If the kids demonstrate responsible parenting and do their best for their children, then the state should help them in every way in other to foster well brought up children who don't hand around corners in hoodies. I'm not saying children in married or two parent families are not equally at risk, but how can you honestly say a kid with 4 siblings from five different ne'er do well fathers will ever have a chance in life. It's time to fundamentally rethink our welfare system and through the baby out with the bath water.