REACTION:RESIDENTS IN Newcastle West yesterday expressed their shock and horror as news of what had happened in the quiet estate unfolded.
Richard Collins said his parents have been living in the Hazelgrove estate for the past 32 years.
“I’m just living down the road with my wife now but I was living here for 29 years. Nothing like this has ever happened here before. It’s a very quiet area,” he said.
“People are in shock. I just came off night shift when I found out and it’s just not something you think you are going to wake up to at all, murder on your own doorstep.”
The parish priest for Newcastle West, Fr Frank Duhig, said locals were “bewildered . . . they’re saying what has the world come to?”
“The community is in total shock,” he said. “There was a lot of fear first too, I can tell you, because at first people thought maybe there was somebody who could do more, but that abated after somebody was arrested.
“It hasn’t sunk in as of yet and people don’t know a huge amount about it yet.”
Local Fine Gael councillor Patrick Donovan said the community was “absolutely shell shocked” at the tragedy, especially given the young age of the children involved.
The Hazelgrove estate was long established with many older couples and pensioners living in the community. Residents there were devastated by the news.
“You read these things in the paper but you never expect something like this to happen right around the corner.”
Mr O’Donovan, who works as a school teacher in the local primary school, was also at the scene yesterday
“It’s just absolutely unbelievable. It’s not the type of thing you expect to happen in a town like this,” he said.
“I heard about it at 2pm just as school was over. It’s just unreal. Four children, one of whom is just three and the other only an infant – that shouldn’t happen.”
Cllr Richard Butler, cathaoirleach of Limerick County Council, said: “No words could adequately describe the tragedy that has befallen the people of Newcastle West.
“I would call on the people of Co Limerick and indeed, the rest of the country to pray for the loved ones of those whose lives have been so tragically cut short,” he said.
The community was in a state of shock and disbelief at this tragedy, he added.