*Photograph: Joe Buckley.
CRIMINAL ACTIVITY is on the rise in Newmarket-on-Fergus with local residents on edge following a stabbing and the firebombing of a car in separate incidents.
In the first hours of February, emergency services had to respond to a fire in Kilnasoolagh Park, Newmarket-on-Fergus where a car was burnt out. The incident is the second major anti-social incident to take place in the village in as many weekends.
Violence is understood to have escalated in the past week according to residents with a stabbing leaving one man hospitalised.
Emergency services and An Garda Síochána attended “the scene of an incident of criminal damage by fire”, a spokesperson confirmed to The Clare Echo. “The local fire service extinguished the fire. There were no injuries reported. The scene is being held for technical examination. Investigations are ongoing,” the statement added.
Prior to the firebomb, the windows of the car had been smashed hours earlier on Saturday night.
According to Gardaí, there were no injuries reported following the fire but one man has been hospitalised in a separate but connected incident whereby a male sustained facial injuries in a suspected beating in a prominent location of the village on the evening of Saturday January 31st.
Subsequent to this, an iron bar is understood to have been brandished in a follow-on incident where it is alleged two youths were assaulted.
CCTV footage from the locality has been collected by Gardaí as part of their investigations into the fire and assaults.
A concerned resident of Newmarket-on-Fergus told The Clare Echo that the village “has become lawless. There are serious issues with drugs, feuding, car robberies, drug-debt intimidation, fires, and dangerous burn-outs. People feel like they are living in a war zone, with little to no Garda presence to keep the community safe”.
