On Friday night, as they waited for the Late Late Toy Show to start, Mary Holt and her four-year-old grandnephew Tadhg could be seen putting up the Christmas tree in the front room
The house in Edenderry, Co Offaly, had no blinds, likely the result of numerous previous attacks during which windows were broken. As a result, neighbours, could see this ordinary family scene as they passed.
They thought nothing of it until the following night when someone threw a petrol bomb through a downstairs window of the end of terrace house in Castleview Park, a quiet housing estate of 48 homes.
The flames quickly took hold and spread downstairs, trapping Mary (40) and Tadhg in a back room where they died of smoke inhalation. Pauline Holt, Tadhg’s grandmother, and Mary’s sister, suffered serious injuries and remains in a serious condition.
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“They must have known there was someone inside. You couldn’t not know,” said one resident of the estate who asked not to be named.
“It’s just sad beyond words for the young child,” said former Ireland and Liverpool football star John Aldridge, who was a regular visitor to the house next door. “Words fail you when something like this occurs.”
He said he was “aware there were problems” in the house where the attack occurred. Gardaí said it has been attacked several times, including last year when a pipe bomb was left behind the property.
“I know Edenderry very well,” Aldridge told The Irish Times by phone from Portugal. “The people will do what they have to do and rally round. We just have to make sure whoever done it gets what they deserve.”
The reaction from locals on Monday was one of shock at the barbaric nature of the attack and anger over the drug trade which has caused a rise in criminality in the area.
Of particular concern is drug debt intimidation. When addicts accrue debt, the dealers pay other people, often addicts themselves, to attack their homes, or the homes of their families.
Aldridge’s friend, Pat McBride, who grew up in the house next door, said he was at the scene five minutes after it happened. He blamed the “greed and scourge of drugs”.
Referring to previous attacks on the house, McBride, the chair of the local Derry Rovers Football Club, said “people on the street have been terrorised and afraid for years”.
Gardaí believe a violent local drugs gang was behind the attack. One line of inquiry is the attack was ordered from prison by a senior criminal figure.
Neither Mary or Pauline Holt were involved in drug dealing but Tadhg’s father Aaron Holt is currently in custody awaiting sentencing for possession of a large quantity of drugs.
Investigators suspect the attack was directed at this man, even though the attackers would have known he was in custody at the time.
McBride is organising a vigil at the club for Wednesday night in protest against criminality and drug dealing in the community.
“There is a lot of drug dealing and there’s a lot of traffic into the town. It’s very busy on certain days,” said local Independent councillor Fergus O’Donnell who lived in Castleview.
“People are quickly running into debt and are beholden to the suppliers. And it escalates from there up to what happened on Saturday night. That’s my own opinion.”
Several houses down from the burnt out property, three houses were adorned with Christmas lists, none of which were lit up on Monday.
Every year a small ceremony is held to turn on the lights and this year Tadhg and other local children were expected to attend. But there will be no ceremony this year.
“I used to see him play on the green there,” said one resident, who also asked not to be named. It is understood Tadhg lived with his mother in the next estate over but regularly had sleepovers in the house. “He was a lovely little lad,” said the woman.
“Nothing like this ever happens here. It’s a big shock to the locality, especially coming up to Christmas,” said local Oisín Murphy.
“It’s very tough on the neighbours.”
