OLDEST IRISH AMERICAN NEWSPAPER IN USA, ESTABLISHED IN 1928
Category: Archive

Around Ireland Bloody mess in Ballymun

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Patrick Markey

A Ballymun family have been forced to move home after an upstairs neighbor was murdered and his blood soaked through into their apartment below.

The Northside People recently reported that sisters Julie and Michelle Croghan returned from a family funeral in England recently to discover the blood stained walls of their apartment.

Gardai had sealed of their home as they investigated the brutal murder of a neighbor who died in the flat above them.

Derek Benson, a 34-year-old father of one, was left with horrific injuries to his body and head after trying to fend off a machete and knife attack. His attackers also set fire to his apartment.

Firefighters hosed down the smoldering remains of the victim’s room and the blood-stained water leaked through the joints and ran down the walls of the apartment below.

Follow us on social media

Keep up to date with the latest news with The Irish Echo

The family described how the discolored water spread across the ceiling, down the wall, splattering furniture, beds and clothing with the victim’s blood.

"One of our friends videotaped the blood flowing down the walls and you would swear it was straight out of one of those horror flicks," Julie Croghan told the paper.

Losing their marbles

Kilkenny is known as the Marble City — but not for much longer.

Local politicians are furious over a threat to degrade the status of Kilkenny from city to town.

Under a proposed new local government bill, Kilkenny will become a town after almost 400 years as a city, reports the Munster Express.

Kilkenny Mayor Tony Patterson has slammed the idea and said other main urban centers, including Waterford, are to retain their city title.

"It is hurtful to any citizen of Kilkenny who has a sense of history or tradition," the mayor complained. "If this bill goes through we can forget all about celebrating 400 years as a city in 2009."

Kilkenny is the only existing city set to lose its place in the planned local government shake-up, along with 80 urban authorities changing to town councils.

With a population of 8,500, and another 25,000 living in the greater region, Kilkenny was constituted as a city by James I in 1609. It’s a heritage local pols hope to keep. An amendment is expected which will exempt Kilkenny from the change.

Shop till you drop

Limerick shoppers are a fearsome lot.

During a recent shopping spree in a store on Cruises Street, customers were willing to risk being blown up rather than not get their shopping done.

The Limerick Leader reports that most shoppers in Argos refused to leave the store when staff alerted them to a bomb scare in a nearby building.

"We asked the customers to leave the store calmly but they refused and said they just wanted to get their shopping done and would rather stay in the store," said an Argos staff member.

"There were about 20 customers in the shop at the time of the scare and only three people left of their own accord when they heard there was a bomb scare. The rest wouldn’t budge and we eventually had to make them vacate the shop."

Gardai eventually found no evidence of a bomb.

Take it away!

Take-out food is ubiquitous in Ireland. But the extras that Teresa O’Brien got in her meal are not.

The Killarney women was recently awarded a slight £400 for personal injuries — the shock, nausea and emotional upset that she suffered when maggots dropped from the chicken and chips she was eating.

The Kerryman newspaper reported that O’Brien sued a local take-out shop after she made the grisly discover in her chicken and chips in July last year. O’Brien told the court that she had brought the meal, taken it home and placed it on plates for her family.

When she took a bit out of the chicken she saw, "all little worms or yellow maggots crawling out of it on the plate."

"They were on the chicken," she said. "When I bit into the chicken, they fell onto the plate."

Other Articles You Might Like

Sign up to our Daily Newsletter

Click to access the login or register cheese