*Photograph: Paschal Brooks
CLARE’S CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT has said resources are “being used from everywhere” in the bid to quell feud activity that has been ongoing in Ennis since November.
Sittings of Ennis District Court have heard that up to ten Traveller families are involved in violent feuds across the county town.
An approximate seven people are before the Courts relating to these feuds. The Clare Echo understands that as many as five separate feuds are ongoing between different families.
Citing a “recent spike in feud activity in Ennis,” Clare TD Cathal Crowe (FF) discussed the matter at this month’s meeting of the Clare Joint Policing Committee (JPC). He spoke of “pretty dramatic” videos filmed from halting sites and locations around the county, “the ordinary decent people of Ennis and surrounding communities are wondering if there is a strategy to clamp down on this. This is a pretty fantastic county town, we’d like to think these are isolated incidents”.
Deputy Crowe questioned Garda officials to try ascertain if additional resources like the armed support unit had been brought in to tackle the feud. “The public and politicians want raids and searches of these properties and halting sites, we’d all like to see a robust search of these premises,” the Meelick native commented.
Chief Supt Colm O’Sullivan told the meeting, “there’s an ongoing investigation into that so for operational reasons I can’t discuss that”.
He added, “I can assure you that there are resources being used from everywhere, the armed support unit have been in Ennis on a frequent basis”.
