The voice of a terrified child can be heard clearly in a social media video that was widely shared in November, following an attack on a mobile home in Rathkeale by men wearing balaclavas and armed with machetes.
The attack is but one of a series of violent incidents that culminated in the ramming of cars on the town’s streets on Monday – actions that prompted national political condemnation but drew local cynicism.
In the eyes of many locals, including those with connections to the gardaí, the trouble has been brewing for months and it has been ignored by the authorities – with rural Limerick Garda stations left understaffed and under-resourced.
In November, local Fianna Fáil councillor Kevin Sheahan, a former garda, warned that trouble was looming, adding that he had been told by criminal elements to “stay away” from parts of the town. “Law and order has gone out the window in Rathkeale,” he said.
Rathkeale’s population triples every Christmas, with hundreds of Travellers returning to visit relatives, get married or christen babies. The vast majority are back to “simply and lawfully enjoy the festivities”, but “a minority have no respect for the law”, said Sheahan.
In a bid to curb trouble ahead, gardaí cordoned off part of the town on November 21st, while the Garda’s regional armed support unit helped local officers seize weapons in a house.
Despite the action, tensions continued to rise, partly spurred by the return of a Limerick city criminal family – which has no Traveller connections – to the town, a place from which it had been previously barred.
Since then, the family has been involved in a number of alleged attempts to extort properties and land in the town. Recently, some members of the family allegedly bulldozed their way on to council-owned land in the town, a matter come before the courts next year.
Associates of the family, which has geographical links in England, are described as “ruthless” and “have no fear of the law”. One of them was convicted for attacking another man with a slash hook.
While the presence of the family has dramatically heightened tensions in the town, it still remains unclear if any members of the family were involved in last Monday’s ramming since there are overlapping and parallel feuds under way in the town.
Instead, last Monday’s violence may have been directly linked to an argument between parties following a recent row outside a pub outside of Rathkeale. Others have suggested that it was linked to an argument over a court case.
Meanwhile, there is a feud involving two Traveller families with local links, one of whom has, according to sources, long been involved in importing drugs from Bulgaria to England. Meanwhile, individuals with links to a UK-based drugs gang have surfaced in the town, too.
Calling for more resources, local Fine Gael councillor Adam Teskey said: “There’s a serious problem in all the towns and villages in rural Ireland. You see it in parts of Dublin in recent months. Throughout the length and breadth off the country, law and order is breaking down.”
When The Irish Times telephoned Rathkeale Garda station on Thursday, the call was immediately diverted to Newcastle West. Rathkeale Garda station would be open to the public between 7pm and 8pm that night, it was said.
“You have a Garda station in Rathkeale that is open for a few hours a day, this is embarrassing, it is embarrassing for the gardaí and it should never have been left go this far,” said a former garda.
“If you don’t have proper policing on the ground you’re never going to end this. This stuff in Rathkeale has been going on for years and years and especially at Christmas time,” the former garda added.
Monday night’s incident, which left a slew of damaged cars on the streets and machetes abandoned on the ground, kicked off when local gardaí had been dealing with an unrelated fatal car crash outside the town.
The local Garda district headquarters in Newcastle West was closed four years because it was infested with rats, but while gardaí are holed up in an inadequate premises in the town nothing has been done to replace it, Teskey said. “That’s a farce, it’s a disgrace that our gardaí have to work in these conditions. They need proper support and a proper Garda station to work out of in 2022 – it’s beyond me, it’s just beyond me. He pointed out that a Garda drug unit was moved out of Rathkeale to a more adequate base in Adare.
Despite abuse directed towards Rathkeale’s Travellers on social media, Teskey said the vast majority of them want “harmony and peace and want nothing to do with what happened last Monday”.
“There is a great community spirit between the settled Travelling community and the non-Traveller community in Rathkeale, but a minority are causing a toxic atmosphere here,” he said.
Up to half a dozen feuds involving Travellers are currently ongoing between Rathkeale, Askeaton, Abbeyfeale and into north Kerry, leaving local gardaí stretched, according to local informed sources.
However, the involvement of a number of local families in the drug trade is never going to be tackled unless society as a whole faces up the scourge of drug-taking that is going on, local Independent councillor and barrister Emmett O’Brien warned.
“The dogs on the street know what’s going on but we have a cultural apathy to the amount of cocaine use in the community across Limerick. The gardaí are aware of it, but I feel sorry them,” he said.
“It’s hard to get people to give evidence against drug dealers. It’s easier to buy cocaine than it is to buy weedkiller,” said O’Brien, who said people elsewhere might have been “shocked and disturbed” by Monday night’s scenes “but they should not have been surprised”.
The Limerick barrister and others who spoke to The Irish Times argue that local gardaí are “demoralised” because a long-running Garda Headquarters investigation that has left a number of gardaí suspended without charge for more than two years
Senior Garda management “need to lock” local criminals up, object to bail, take their luxury cars off them, get the Criminal Assets Bureau in their faces, employ a zero-tolerance approach against them, a former garda said.
“Otherwise, these guys don’t care. They will continue to cause problems like we saw last Monday. There is plenty of legislation in the State there to tackle criminals – use it,” the retired officer said.