Una Farrell (93) was back behind the counter of Farrell’s Mini-Market, Ballintubber, Co Roscommon, on Wednesday afternoon.
Around her, her life’s work, a tapestry of shelves, decorated with tins of Heinz beans, packets of Duracell batteries, some fruit and veg, Barry’s Tea and bottles of Lucozade.
Just two days earlier, in the early hours of Monday morning, Una and her two sons – Séamus and John – had been the victims of an aggravated burglary when at least four masked men confronted the family and then restrained them, before proceeding to ransack their shop and adjoining home. the ordeal went on for an hour before they made off with some cash, and cigarettes.
Una takes pity on the culprits, she says, and is not interested in speaking much more about the matter.
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She opened the shop with her late husband, John, in 1961. He built it and the adjoining home himself.
Those were different times, she says. Now, the rural convenience store is a something of a relic of times gone by.
But Una has persisted. In many ways, nothing has changed in the shop since it first opened. But Monday morning’s ordeal serves as a reminder of the potential risks involved.
“Nobody can predict anything,” Una says. “We could have been killed the other night.”
And yet, the doors of Farrell’s Mini-Market remain open, almost in defiance.
As The Irish Times steps outside, a man carrying a bouquet of flowers moves through the door into the shop.
“My mother is undaunted,” says another of Una’s sons, Richie. “She’s probably of that generation that get up, dust themselves off and go again.
“The violation of a public house, as such, fills her with a lot of sadness. She has little time for the people who behave like that. She calls them filth and cowards. They have no business doing what they have, but she doesn’t bear any grudges. She just wants to have her customers come in and talk to her.”
Mr Farrell said one of his brothers was locking up when the gang involved managed to get inside the premises.
“They pushed and kicked and dragged him through the house. And they rounded up my (other) brother - who was down visiting from Dublin - from his room and brought them into my mother’s room. My mother was in bed at the time. One or two of them then proceeded to tie them up and the language was foul, they were hyper.
“My brother said they were looking for the cash and the cigarettes and stuff that was on the premises. And the other two were ransacking the house as well,” he said, adding the attackers had screwdrivers and other implements and took clothing from the drawers to tie up the family.
He said the attack was “very violent, a physical attack”. He told Today with Claire Byrne on RTÉ Radio 1 the gang members wanted to know where the alarms were and where the cash was, threatening his mother and brothers “we’ll give it to you if you don’t give is the money”.
“It went on for an hour until they got what they wanted and then they were gone,” he said. During the ordeal when his mother asked to used the bathroom, as she was ‘in shock’, she locked herself in and refused to come out. One of the men “wrenched the door open and took her out again”.
“It’s a traumatic thing to happen, criminality and violence has always been around,” he said. “But aggravated burglary is a different thing entirely and there are a lot of these gangs and robberies taking place around the country. The shop would be isolated. It is at a crossroads, but you wouldn’t be any further away than 10 minutes from the main [road] arteries going to Dublin, going to Westport.”
He believed the gangs were “mobile and organised and fairly professional” and that they knew how far the nearest Garda stations were located from the places they planned to target. Mr Farrell while the attack may have been planned based on “local information”, this was speculation.
He said his mother was a “formidable individual” and would not regard herself as a victim, adding she planned to continue with her life and to continue running her shop. While the property was “messed up” there was no serious damage.
