A woman shot and wounded in a gun attack in Dublin on Saturday has undergone surgery and remains seriously ill in hospital after the attack.
The victim, who has no involvement in crime or dissident republicanism, was shot at a flat in the Bernard Curtis House complex in Bluebell, Dublin 8, at about 1pm on Saturday.
A man who was in the flat at the time was also wounded, though he managed to flee the scene. He was not as seriously injured as the woman and he was able to present himself later on Saturday for medical treatment.
Gardaí investigating the shooting had earlier arrested four men; three from the North and one from Dublin. Three of these men have now been released without charge while the fourth man is still being detained under Section 30 Offences Against the State Act, 1939.
Other people were also present in the flat at the time of the attack, including a child, though they were not injured. The scene remains sealed off and has undergone an examination by members of the Garda Technical Bureau as part of the criminal investigation into what appears to have been a well planned attack.
The injured woman, a Dubliner in her 30s, was shot in the arm and chest while the injured man (30s) was wounded in the arm. While the man was expected to make a full recovery, the female victim is critically ill.
While the wounded woman is not involved in any form of crime, she is related to a dissident republican currently serving a life sentence in prison for a gun murder almost a decade ago.
Veteran Dublin criminal Eamon Kelly was shot dead by the Real IRA at Furry Park Road, Killester on December 4th, 2012, as he returned home from a betting shop. It was suspected his murder was revenge for the shooting dead three months earlier, also in north Dublin, of dissident republican leader in the city Alan Ryan (41).
Sean Connolly (41), of Bernard Curtis House, Bluebell, Dublin, pleaded guilty at the Special Criminal Court in 2015 to the murder of Kelly. Connolly is currently serving a life sentence in prison and he is related to the woman who was shot on Saturday.
Kelly was associated with the Official IRA, and contributed money to it, although he never joined the republican movement. He was also heavily involved in gangland crime including drug dealing and planning major armed robberies, including in the years just before his death.
While a precise motive for the attack on Saturday in Bluebell has still being established, gardaí suspect it is linked to a dispute between dissident republicans from the North and gangland criminals from Dublin.
