TRIBUTES HAVE been paid to the quick-witted actions of two gardaí and a grandmother who foiled an armed raid on a business family in north Galway on Sunday night.
Gardaí have initiated a country-wide search for two members of the gang, believed to be from Dublin, who escaped after the violent break-in at the family home in the village of Lackagh, some 10 miles north of Galway city.
Three members of the gang were apprehended, and two were still being held last night in Galway under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act. A third man was under Garda surveillance in hospital where he was being treated for leg injuries sustained at the scene.
The alert was raised shortly before 9pm on Sunday when it is believed the masked gang gained access to the home of Julien and Emma Flynn in Lackagh village.
The two-storey house at the rear of the Flynn supermarket and hardware business, some 3km off the N17 between Galway and Tuam, is approached by a lane leading down to Lackagh cemetery. It is believed the gang broke a rear upstairs window on to a flat roof at the back of the building.
Mrs Flynn was on the telephone to her mother, Colette Whelan, in Galway city when she heard the noise and was forced to drop the receiver. She and her husband and three of their four children, all under seven, were tied up with cable cord. The youngest is a six-month-old baby.
In Galway, Mrs Whelan phoned a family member living nearby, and it is understood that Mr Flynn’s sister and sister-in-law, Mary and Nicoletta, approached the house and were then pulled inside by the gang.
A very concerned Mrs Whelan and her husband Paddy also phoned the Garda and two uniformed gardaí from Oranmore called to the house. They gained access by the porch, but one of the two was hit with an implement, believed to be a hatchet. In the ensuing scuffle, one man was apprehended and his four companions escaped by the rear window.
Additional gardaí arrested two of the four as they tried to reach their two BMW vehicles, which they had parked in the Woodlands housing estate close to the Flynn retail complex. Two other men escaped with what is believed to have been a small sum of money taken from the Flynn home.
The Garda Air Support Unit helicopter joined in an extensive search of the countryside yesterday and Garda checkpoints were set up. The Flynn family stayed with relatives as gardaí carried out detailed technical examinations of the house and the rear access lane.
Julien Flynn appealed for privacy, speaking from his car as he left his home. “Obviously, it has been quite a traumatic night and I’d really like if you would respect our privacy a bit. We’re all fine thank God, everybody’s fine.
“The guards were wonderful, they really were super and thank God we were very well looked after last night. Somebody in heaven thankfully was looking down on us,” he said.
Fr John D Flannery, parish priest of Lackagh, said the family was “completely traumatised but safe”. “Of course different businesses have been broken into at different times, but this is the first time that the sanctuary of a home has been broken, and this is such a highly thought-of family,” Fr Flannery said.
“Thomas Flynn, Julien’s father, built up this business which has been in the family for virtually a century,” Fr Flannery recalled. “This family has not had it easy,“ he said.
Thomas Flynn lost his wife when the couple’s youngest child was an infant, and two sons subsequently died in separate accidents.
“Julien and Emma are highly respected – Emma is on the school management board – and everyone’s heart would go out to them,” Fr Flynn said.
“It was just very fortunate that Emma was on the phone to her mother at the time of the break-in.
“It will take us all some time to come to terms with this.”