GARDAÍ AT the Bridewell station have appealed for witnesses to a shooting at the Smithfield horse fair in Dublin yesterday in which two men were injured.
Dublin City Council and the Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (DSPCA) have urged the incoming government to introduce emergency legislation to shut down the market.
Gardaí were on the scene when a number of shots were fired at about 11.30am. Two men were wounded and were taken to the Mater hospital, but their injuries were described by gardaí as not life-threatening.
The Army bomb disposal team was called to the scene following the discovery of a suspect device a short time after the shooting. On examination of the device a bomb disposal officer identified it as a home-made shotgun. The shotgun was made safe at the scene and handed over to the Garda.
One man was arrested by gardaí and he was being questioned last night.
DSPCA inspector Liam Kinsella, who was among the crowd at Smithfield Plaza when shots were fired, said he was amazed no one was seriously injured or killed during the incident. “I was in the centre of the plaza and I heard about five or six shots and what sounded like an explosion. There was an immediate stampede, the animals were terrified. I started to run, it was chaos, there was a boy who was trampled, but he seemed to be okay, but people could have been killed.”
Up to 4,500 horse traders and spectators attended yesterday’s fair according to the Garda. The market is held on the first Sunday of every month but the March fair, also known as the stallion fair, is the largest of the year and about 400 horses were being traded yesterday, according to the DSPCA.
The space normally occupied by the fair was reduced by about 50 per cent due to construction work being undertaken by the city council. As a result the market expanded out into the public roads surrounding the plaza, from Brunswick Street to the quays.
The council and the DSPCA had last week appealed to the organisers not to hold the fair yesterday, but their appeals were ignored. DSPCA general manager Jimmy Cahill said yesterday’s “criminality and violence” underlined the need to shut down the market.
“If injured and neglected horses being traded in a city centre does not motivate our legislators to action then today’s outrageous scenes where children were injured in the stampede and people removed to hospital with gunshot injuries should.”
The DSPCA had repeatedly called for legislation that would shut down the fair, which Mr Cahill said was unregulated and unsuitable for a city location.
