The Problems of Limerick To Be Fixed - Some Spit and Polish'll Do the Trick!!

This will be quite a long post methinks.

Drugs are not the problem in Limerick and they never were.

Limerick's Godfathers do not retire to private mansions in Majorca to live lives of luxury with their ill gotten gains. For them, the drugs and the revenue they bring are merely a means to an end, they are not an end in and of themselves. I went to school with the lad who first imported heroin into Limerick. We were good friends when we were kids. Ray... I'll not give his full name for legal reasons and because it's not important for the point I'm going to make. Ray was a mad bastard, in a wild sense. He was the biggest kid in the school, bigger than most of the teachers. The teachers tended to give him an easy ride, not because they feared him, but because they knew that his father was an evil bastard that'd brook no insult to his property. Ray's father didn't give the slightest damn about Ray. Ray was merely property and his father would not tolerate any insult or injury against his property.

Ray was a nice guy with a wicked sense of humour and if you were a friend he'd take a bullet, or indeed give one for you. I was a pretty mad bastard too and didn't need Ray to look out for me. I liked him because he was a decent guy and that's why we were friends.

Last I heard of Ray was a couple of years ago. He was in Limerick prison and had aids. He'd just been attacked by two guys in the prison and was pretty badly beaten up. He was no longer the hulking creature of his youth and could barely defend himself. He's still alive I think and I also think he's no longer in prison. He's not a big shot anymore and will probably be killed if he raises his head, there's a contract or two on him. I seldom hear anything of him other than the odd sighting. No Majorca for Ray. No luxury either.

You'll never hear of a Limerick gangster being arrested whilst in retirement abroad. It doesn't happen and it won't happen. Limerick gangsters don't leave. That's the clue. It's not about living a life of ease. It's about pure and unadulterated hatred.

Why is it that we see some scumbag solicitor who has stolen millions from his clients in property and money, skip the country, without the authorities so much as raising a finger to stop him, or picking up a phone to have him arrested in his current home? Yet, if it were a Limerick scumbag who'd stolen a few grand, we'd throw the book at him and bay for his blood. It would be easier to hate the Limerick scum if they were stupid brutes. But they're not. They've considered the value allocated to them and they've, in their unique fashion, equalised their society, by dragging everyone else down to their allotted value. "If I'm to be treated as worthless, then that's how I shall consider you."

You might think I'm spinning a sob yarn here. I'm not, as will become clear when I describe the cure.

Here's where the hatred comes in. The bad folks in Moyross and elsewhere, having equalised those in close proximity, by considering and treating them as worthless, have fixed their sights on those who primarily apportioned the worthlessness value on them. The authorities. What you are witnessing is a rebellion, a revolution. Their numbers thus far have not facilitated them moving beyond the destruction of their neighbours. Their neighbours are the sacrifice that we offer so that we may remain comfortable. This is why we do not fix the problem. It's not a case of not understanding, it's a case of understanding too bloody well.

Am I talking through me arse? Try this little thought experiment. Imagine if everyone in Limerick was a scumbag, intending to visit carnage and destruction on the rest of the country. Would we do something about it then? Too bloody right we would. Would we have a problem identifying the problem? No we wouldn't. When I say "we," I mean "we" but I mean mostly the authorities.

Limerick is easy to fix. In theory. But if we fix it, the good folks in Limerick will have time and space to realise that it wasn't the scumbags who devalued them. And then we'll have a real problem.

To fix the ills of Limerick we need to employ a two-pronged strategy. The first strategy must be premised on the promise that the second strategy will be enacted. The second strategy is of course the re-valuation of these forgotten people and that involves the stuff that's dreamed about in this so-called "Masterplan."

The first stratagem involves enforcing the existing law. The number of scumbags in Limerick is less than a thousand. Every time one of these people leaves their house, they must be followed, videoed and prevented from committing a crime. Shut each and every one of them down for a year and you solve the problem, provided you make good with the second promise. If you renege on the second part of the strategy, the problem reasserts itself, only worse. It will continue to grow until you can no longer command the resources to combat it. Then it will be blood on the streets and we'll see a considerable loss of life. This considerable loss of life might bring numbers down far enough that it might be possible, once again, to manage the problem. And history will repeat itself until we deal with our problem.

Audi asked earlier if Limerick's criminals were harder than criminals to be found elsewhere. The answer is an undoubted yes. Limerick is legend and Limerick's legends have much to live up to and they do so with a passion. Ask any executive - advertising works.

I personally find my plan to fix Limerick to be distasteful. But there's no other way.

To add to Hermes story about Ray. My experience of criminals (Dublin) who were, shall we say senior enough, was that they were decent enough on a one to one level as were their kids. It`s the anti-social lout and his/ her kids who was much less manageable. I suppose they fell between two schools, not inclined to be a productive member of society they either lacked the brains or the intelligence to be able to do the thing full time. I can understand now how your pal could simultaneously be a decent skin and import heroin at the same time, although, I completely disapprove of it and would lock him up for life happily for doing it.

Someone already said this, but if you knocked on any door in Moyross, whoever answered could tell you exactly what the area needs in order to recover and be a good place to live.

Over and above that answer, I think that they should be able to form their own local authority, with elected representatives and a proper budget, and manage it themselves. The population of each the two main housing areas is much bigger than some small towns that have councils.

These places were never planned. Housing administrators bought land and got houses built. They have no facilities. Limerick City Council has had its chance. These areas should be given their own Local Authority or else they should declare UDI.

Hermes wrote:

The first stratagem involves enforcing the existing law. The number of scumbags in Limerick is less than a thousand. Every time one of these people leaves their house, they must be followed, videoed and prevented from committing a crime. Shut each and every one of them down for a year and you solve the problem, provided you make good with the second promise. If you renege on the second part of the strategy, the problem reasserts itself, only worse. It will continue to grow until you can no longer command the resources to combat it. Then it will be blood on the streets and we'll see a considerable loss of life. This considerable loss of life might bring numbers down far enough that it might be possible, once again, to manage the problem. And history will repeat itself until we deal with our problem.

Audi asked earlier if Limerick's criminals were harder than criminals to be found elsewhere. The answer is an undoubted yes. Limerick is legend and Limerick's legends have much to live up to and they do so with a passion. Ask any executive - advertising works.

I personally find my plan to fix Limerick to be distasteful. But there's no other way.

Well, at least we agree on something -we both find your plan to fix Limerick to be distasteful, and I'm gobsmacked that someone who ordinarily values civil liberties so highly would suggest that anyone be videoed in their daily lives and prevented from committing a crime. Quite apart from the fact that it's been shown over the years that that kind of surveillance only makes criminals more inventive and more pissed off. Martin Cahill is a good example of that.

Today I read a book by Philip Bray called 'Inside Man' about his thirty years working in Limerick prison. It's more interesting for what it leaves out than what it says in many ways, but one thing that struck me rather forcibly about it was how he looked at the development of gang culture in Limerick. Drugs have had a huge influence on changing the dynamic. There was a time when there was an unspoken agreement that when in prison, the feuding sides would cease to feud. Those days are gone. It would be worth reading, despite the fact that it's more disappointing than not in terms of the real detail he goes into.

Hatred has nothing to do with it, Hermes, or at least it has very little. What these guys have in their lives is nothing except the feud and what that has to do with is power, nothing else.

Bray quotes some Limerick prisoner who berated another with the line "and what have you ever done for the feud?" and he makes the point that things have changed again in recent times, so that all authority is seen as a threat to their ascending star - hence attacks on prison officers' homes, cars, etc. Those two little kids weren't burned in a car because of hatred. It was because someone could.

Lets have a bit of social context here:

lumpenproletariat

(n) 1. A section of the population in capitalist society that is deprived of a role in production.

(n) 2. The most impoverished section in capitalist society comprising mostly of vagrants, vagabonds, criminals, welfare recipients, drug addicts, etc.

(n) 3. A non-revolutionary current in capitalist society, in Marxist terms.

A socialist revolution could never come from the lumpenproletariat due to the fact that they have no stake in production.

Some of the people who live in the Limerick estates have been driven down by generations of life on benefits. A minority of them have become hardened criminals - petty capitalists with guns.

The thing of it is Kate P is that the rule of law has broken down in certain areas. If there was a rebellion tomorrow morning and the rebels created enclaves for themselves by terrorising their opposition the country would be clamouring for something a lot stronger than video cameras to be used on them. These serious criminals have rejected the idea of citizenship (as being based on responsibilities as well as rights), they pose a threat to the well being of large numbers of people through direct violence as well as through the drugs trade. These who have rejected citizenship still live within the state. They are the enemy within.

Now as it happens the idea of videotaping them constantly would be ineffective in my mind in the long run. If you reduce them to walking and to organising themselves face to face you restrict their ability to organise themselves quickly, warn each other etc. But nothing would work like my two serious crimes and life in prison law. The cost of keeping them would be a lot less than the long-term benefit of a drop in crime.

This thing has been on my mind all day and it deserves a better response than I'll probably give it now but here goes.

Most of us here only get glimpses of what the reality is for most people in the likes of Moyross so I wonder how much our perceptions are skewed by lack of information or by information as mis-presented in the media. Did Paul Williams appear on the Late Late last night talking about criminal gangs ?

It's interesting to hear the different opinions here on this, my own is fairly extreme as expressed by me initially but I'll have to temper it a bit and not because Kate P chastised the hell out of me for calling everyone scumbags either - the reality must be far more complex than deserving of a simple knee-jerk reaction.

But at some stage it's going to deserve an instinctive, knee-jerk, heavy-handed response if those things are not contradictory; Hermes alludes to such a point in time in his last post - maybe that point in time is around now ?

Kate is taking the approach from the long-view and maybe that's worth exploring for a while - is this a societal problem where as Hermes has said, proud, dignified and strong people suffer neglect so then they turn around and turn into sociopathic savages. Some of this is savagery - I'm thinking of the two children torched in the back of a car, lucky to get away alive.

Savages are natural though - is this a natural response to a situation they were put in, these Lumpen Proles in the first place ? Limerick is full of snobbery and indeed our society in general can be very closed-minded and petty. I'm not shifting the blame because however it started it seems to have got out of control, perhaps in the country at large as the likes of Paul Williams likes to point out, so maybe the response has to be very careful and complex.

anmajornarthainig wrote:

The thing of it is Kate P is that the rule of law has broken down in certain areas. If there was a rebellion tomorrow morning and the rebels created enclaves for themselves by terrorising their opposition the country would be clamouring for something a lot stronger than video cameras to be used on them. These serious criminals have rejected the idea of citizenship (as being based on responsibilities as well as rights), they pose a threat to the well being of large numbers of people through direct violence as well as through the drugs trade. These who have rejected citizenship still live within the state. They are the enemy within.

Now as it happens the idea of videotaping them constantly would be ineffective in my mind in the long run. If you reduce them to walking and to organising themselves face to face you restrict their ability to organise themselves quickly, warn each other etc. But nothing would work like my two serious crimes and life in prison law. The cost of keeping them would be a lot less than the long-term benefit of a drop in crime.

I strongly agree that lack of law enforcement is a big part of the problem in Limerick. If we can't be bothered to give people a place in secondary school, why would we bother spending money on policing their neighbourhoods to make them safe? This is as much of a cheat as not treating people for cancer. I think that ordinary enforcement of the law would have stopped things getting to where they are now. But no matter how difficult, people are entitled to their full legal rights. Difficult or not, they are entitled to have basic law enforcement so they can live their lives.

You`re ignoring one thing though audi in your post. Ninety percent of people + within Moyross or any other area are sound. Even within the worst family there are people who are sound. Now cutting aside people who have been the subject of serious abuse or trauma, or people who are mentally ill still leaves you with a group of people who have chosen to be scumbags. As a friend of mine says "Some people are just cunts." The problem isn`t just sociological it`s also pyschological and economic.

Cactus flower I`m not sure whether you`re saying the ordinary people deserved to have their legal rights or the criminals or both?

anmajornarthainig wrote:

You`re ignoring one thing though audi in your post. Ninety percent of people within Moyross or any other area are sound. Even within the worst family there are people who are sound. Now cutting aside people who have been the subject of serious abuse or trauma, or people who are mentally ill still leaves you with a group of people who have chosen to be scumbags. As a friend of mine says "Some people are just cunts." The problem isn`t just sociological it`s also pyschological and economic.

Well that's why it's so complex - the rotten apple (or not) theory. What if they are priests who just got bad breaks, as youngdan says ? Will we ever know.

Logistically Hermes desire to police them to hell is very extreme indeed - Totalitarianise them. I wonder are our prisons too comfy and sentences too lenient ?

anmajornarthainig wrote:

You`re ignoring one thing though audi in your post. Ninety percent of people + within Moyross or any other area are sound. Even within the worst family there are people who are sound. Now cutting aside people who have been the subject of serious abuse or trauma, or people who are mentally ill still leaves you with a group of people who have chosen to be scumbags. As a friend of mine says "Some people are just cunts." The problem isn`t just sociological it`s also pyschological and economic.

Cactus flower I`m not sure whether you`re saying the ordinary people deserved to have their legal rights or the criminals or both?

Both, both.

Auditor #9 wrote:

anmajornarthainig wrote:

You`re ignoring one thing though audi in your post. Ninety percent of people within Moyross or any other area are sound. Even within the worst family there are people who are sound. Now cutting aside people who have been the subject of serious abuse or trauma, or people who are mentally ill still leaves you with a group of people who have chosen to be scumbags. As a friend of mine says "Some people are just cunts." The problem isn`t just sociological it`s also pyschological and economic.

Well that's why it's so complex - the rotten apple (or not) theory. What if they are priests who just got bad breaks, as youngdan says ? Will we ever know.

Logistically Hermes desire to police them to hell is very extreme indeed - Totalitarianise them. I wonder are our prisons too comfy and sentences too lenient ?

I don`t agree with the idea of prisons being hell on earth. You can treat the men and women there humanely it still won`t be better than being on the outside. I do think, however, that sentences should be savagely long for serious crime. The other thing I think regarding prisons is that fines should be used for things like assault more often. Having to pay a guy fifteen or twenty grand because you gave him a kicking would bother many people a lot more than a three month stretch.

anmajornarthainig wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

anmajornarthainig wrote:

You`re ignoring one thing though audi in your post. Ninety percent of people within Moyross or any other area are sound. Even within the worst family there are people who are sound. Now cutting aside people who have been the subject of serious abuse or trauma, or people who are mentally ill still leaves you with a group of people who have chosen to be scumbags. As a friend of mine says "Some people are just cunts." The problem isn`t just sociological it`s also pyschological and economic.

Well that's why it's so complex - the rotten apple (or not) theory. What if they are priests who just got bad breaks, as youngdan says ? Will we ever know.

Logistically Hermes desire to police them to hell is very extreme indeed - Totalitarianise them. I wonder are our prisons too comfy and sentences too lenient ?

I don`t agree with the idea of prisons being hell on earth. You can treat the men and women there humanely it still won`t be better than being on the outside. I do think, however, that sentences should be savagely long for serious crime. The other thing I think regarding prisons is that fines should be used for things like assault more often. Having to pay a guy fifteen or twenty grand because you gave him a kicking would bother many people a lot more than a three month stretch.

Circle the wagons. People won't give evidence, because they are either loyal or scared for their lives. There need to be alternatives for people who are not too locked into criminal life, particularly teenagers. Is Ireland the only country in Europe without professional youth services? There needs to be a place in school for every child and a few basics - GAA, swimming, libraries, homework clubs.

On the other hand, people who are violent criminals need to be convicted for whatever they can legitimately be convicted of. There need to be police "on the beat" all the time.

Kate P wrote:

Hermes wrote:

The first stratagem involves enforcing the existing law. The number of scumbags in Limerick is less than a thousand. Every time one of these people leaves their house, they must be followed, videoed and prevented from committing a crime. Shut each and every one of them down for a year and you solve the problem, provided you make good with the second promise. If you renege on the second part of the strategy, the problem reasserts itself, only worse. It will continue to grow until you can no longer command the resources to combat it. Then it will be blood on the streets and we'll see a considerable loss of life. This considerable loss of life might bring numbers down far enough that it might be possible, once again, to manage the problem. And history will repeat itself until we deal with our problem.

Audi asked earlier if Limerick's criminals were harder than criminals to be found elsewhere. The answer is an undoubted yes. Limerick is legend and Limerick's legends have much to live up to and they do so with a passion. Ask any executive - advertising works.

I personally find my plan to fix Limerick to be distasteful. But there's no other way.

Well, at least we agree on something -we both find your plan to fix Limerick to be distasteful, and I'm gobsmacked that someone who ordinarily values civil liberties so highly would suggest that anyone be videoed in their daily lives and prevented from committing a crime. Quite apart from the fact that it's been shown over the years that that kind of surveillance only makes criminals more inventive and more pissed off. Martin Cahill is a good example of that.

Today I read a book by Philip Bray called 'Inside Man' about his thirty years working in Limerick prison. It's more interesting for what it leaves out than what it says in many ways, but one thing that struck me rather forcibly about it was how he looked at the development of gang culture in Limerick. Drugs have had a huge influence on changing the dynamic. There was a time when there was an unspoken agreement that when in prison, the feuding sides would cease to feud. Those days are gone. It would be worth reading, despite the fact that it's more disappointing than not in terms of the real detail he goes into.

Hatred has nothing to do with it, Hermes, or at least it has very little. What these guys have in their lives is nothing except the feud and what that has to do with is power, nothing else.

Bray quotes some Limerick prisoner who berated another with the line "and what have you ever done for the feud?" and he makes the point that things have changed again in recent times, so that all authority is seen as a threat to their ascending star - hence attacks on prison officers' homes, cars, etc. Those two little kids weren't burned in a car because of hatred. It was because someone could.

You misunderstand me. I don't care whether drugs etc. continue to be dealt. I'm talking about stopping these people from going out in public to kill or harm each other and innocents. I'm fully aware of how cunning they are and that they'll find ways to run their operations. Murder, intimidation and the general mayhem visited upon Moyross and other areas can be brought to a halt. I'm not just talking of tailing known people with video cameras. I'm talking of mounting cameras everywhere and facilitating the ability to put a halt to their every personal movements. Yup, it's very distasteful, no argument there. But I see no alternative. I watched my parents and hundreds, if not thousands of other good people being confined to the prisons of their homes and minds for decades, being afraid to speak, being afraid to look people in the eyes, for fear that it might cause offence. At least realise that I haven't advocated the other possibility - disinfection.

The warden's book that you're reading is tripe. There was never any agreement between prisoners or anyone else that there'd be peace within Limerick prison. Segregation has always been the policy. And wardens and others have been targetted frequently over the decades. I say frequently, but I don't mean that many wardens have been made suffer, it's a small amount overall, as targetting a warden can have major repercussions back in prison.

You put a lot of emphasis on the many and interwoven feuds in Limerick. That's a very 'Paul Williams' attitude and doesn't stand up to scrutiny. All the feuding parties are 'tooled' up to the eyeballs and could have at each other wholesale if either the feuds or power were the underlying reasons. Limerick was carved up decades ago and the various gangs for the most part respect each others' territories. Not to mention the fact that many feuding gang members live all over the shop in close proximity to each other. The feuds are fuelled solely by hatred and when patches are taken over, it's because the victim has lost the ability to control his patch. It's not about getting the patch, it's about kicking your enemy when he's down. Again, if it were about power we'd see large areas taken over regularly with lots of blood and guts.

The two kids were burnt, not because those who did the burning could do so, but because those who did so, did not realise that the kids were in the car. They ran up to the car and threw the incendiaries without thinking (and indeed without caring). They wanted to burn the car because the mother had refused to drive them somewhere earlier that day. You say they did it because they could. So could I, so could you and so could anybody else. I choose not to, because I do not hate anyone or myself enough to do so and I assume something similar for yourself and everybody else.

Limerick was an incredibly violent place before any of the current feuds erupted. The feuds are a great reason to explain failure, but they go nowhere to explaining why the violence and hatred exists.

When I was a kid, the prevailing feud at the time was the Macs and the Dillons. Anyway, this particular feud got started because the Macs had helped themselves to three or four fingers of a member of the other family. Procured with the aid of an axe. Strangely enough, there were kids from both families in my class and the parents of them often picked them up after school. There was never any butchering done at these meetings. Yet nonetheless, much butchering did happen. This particular feud has lots to do with today's feuds, but Mr. Williams and his ilk know nothing about it. It's safer and easier to make shit up and to take quotes from fools who become members of Limerick Council. In short, the feuds you think of as being recent have their genesis set at least 40 years in the past. If it were merely about power as you suggest, it would have been over well before now.

You're taking a lot on faith when you speak of Limerick's troubles. Faith I suppose has its uses, but in this instance it's groundless and the provenance of the issues in Limerick alone proves it wrong. Why does it go on and on, corrupt each new generation and make miserable everyone in close proximity if it's so well understood and is solely about money and power?

Feuding in Limerick has been going on for more than 40 years that I know of and probably for a lot longer than I know nothing of. Yes the drugs etc. have facilitated guns and have streamlined efficiency. It's a mistake to look at progress and to see it as the cause.

Here's a prediction for you. Either in the year coming or in the year following, the leader of one of these feuding gangs is due to be released from prison (I think it's the coming year). Watch the immediate minature bloodbath that follows and watch it stop abruptly again. Watch the powers that be offer their usual plattitudes and shite. And wait for the next installment. These feuds have nothing to do with power. They're very personal and they're as complex as the violence over the six counties.

What has allowed this to happen, Hermes? and is here anything you think would stop it? You've seen enough in the Courts to know that relaxing legal safeguards doesn't increase justice.

cactus flower wrote:

What has allowed this to happen, Hermes? and is here anything you think would stop it? You've seen enough in the Courts to know that relaxing legal safeguards doesn't increase justice.

The State has allowed it to happen. It's cheap in the short term to do nothing and we've not had any long-term visionaries in office or in local government. Folks have been allowed to fend for themselves and have been allowed to drown.

I'm not talking of relaxing legal safeguards. I'm talking of introducing them for the first time. There are plenty of provisions in law to provide for what I suggest. Fair enough this type of thing normally wouldn't be done so openly, but in this instance it could also be seen as openly protecting people and their families. I doubt the High Court would find cause to shoot it down, or indeed develop the balls.

All in all, what I've said doesn't go towards seeking justice. That train left the station long ago. I'm talking of enforcing the peace - for the very first time.

Hermes wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

What has allowed this to happen, Hermes? and is here anything you think would stop it? You've seen enough in the Courts to know that relaxing legal safeguards doesn't increase justice.

The State has allowed it to happen. It's cheap in the short term to do nothing and we've not had any long-term visionaries in office or in local government. Folks have been allowed to fend for themselves and have been allowed to drown.

I'm not talking of relaxing legal safeguards. I'm talking of introducing them for the first time. There are plenty of provisions in law to provide for what I suggest. Fair enough this type of thing normally wouldn't be done so openly, but in this instance it could also be seen as openly protecting people and their families. I doubt the High Court would find cause to shoot it down, or indeed develop the balls.

All in all, what I've said doesn't go towards seeking justice. That train left the station long ago. I'm talking of enforcing the peace - for the very first time.

Agreed: belt and braces. Not before time.

cactus flower wrote:

anmajornarthainig wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

anmajornarthainig wrote:

You`re ignoring one thing though audi in your post. Ninety percent of people within Moyross or any other area are sound. Even within the worst family there are people who are sound. Now cutting aside people who have been the subject of serious abuse or trauma, or people who are mentally ill still leaves you with a group of people who have chosen to be scumbags. As a friend of mine says "Some people are just cunts." The problem isn`t just sociological it`s also pyschological and economic.

Well that's why it's so complex - the rotten apple (or not) theory. What if they are priests who just got bad breaks, as youngdan says ? Will we ever know.

Logistically Hermes desire to police them to hell is very extreme indeed - Totalitarianise them. I wonder are our prisons too comfy and sentences too lenient ?

I don`t agree with the idea of prisons being hell on earth. You can treat the men and women there humanely it still won`t be better than being on the outside. I do think, however, that sentences should be savagely long for serious crime. The other thing I think regarding prisons is that fines should be used for things like assault more often. Having to pay a guy fifteen or twenty grand because you gave him a kicking would bother many people a lot more than a three month stretch.

Circle the wagons. People won't give evidence, because they are either loyal or scared for their lives. There need to be alternatives for people who are not too locked into criminal life, particularly teenagers. Is Ireland the only country in Europe without professional youth services? There needs to be a place in school for every child and a few basics - GAA, swimming, libraries, homework clubs.

On the other hand, people who are violent criminals need to be convicted for whatever they can legitimately be convicted of. There need to be police "on the beat" all the time.

I`d agree with all of that.

Just saw this article on Indymedia, about the Limerick Regeneration plan. It claimed, amongst other things, that Limerick City Council has been buying houses in Moyross for €20,000 and putting the former owners in rental accommodation. That isn't even the value of the site. The only thing that has stopped the houses having a much higher value is the failure of the authorities to provide law and order.

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/89722

Can anyone confirm if this is or isn't true?

It also claims that its proposed to demolish the whole of Moyross in one phase. This seems insane. Again - can anyone confirm if it is, or isn't true?

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/89723

http://www.cathalmccarthy.ie/main.html - this site includes maps and a link to the Fitzgerald Report on policing.

http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/Limerick-is-united-in-revulsion.4677389.jp

Jimmy Woulfe - Examiner wrote:

Usually when you hear the word murder in Limerick, certain crime black spots come into your head. But this murder happened in Dooradoyle. I live in Dooradoyle.

Just down the road, a young man I never met was gunned to death. Later, one of my sons asked if it was true that Shane Geoghegan was shot dead. They played rugby together at Crescent College, whose grounds bound Kiltiragh where Shane was shot. Reporting can be a cruel task at times when you find yourself in an environment full of great pain, grief and trauma.

Yesterday was a surreal day in the city. I have never experienced the kind of bewilderment you saw on faces everywhere you went.

The realisation that a fine young son of Limerick had been gunned down as he made his way home to his fiancee after watching the Ireland-Canada game with friends came crashing into every corner of the city.

It was, we are told, a case of mistaken identity.

In November 2002 people took to the streets of Limerick when nightclub security man Brian Fitzgerald was shot dead by the McCarthy-Dundon gang, the same gang suspected of the murder of Shane Geoghegan. Brian was targeted because he dared cross the gang when they tried to push drugs in the nightclub in which he worked. Shane Geoghegan never had anything to do with such people.

‘Shane was a quiet hero... Limerick won’t ever forget’
Examiner

The Mayor of Limerick, John Gilligan, is calling for a dedicated armed unit to 'take out these gangs'....

Some poor codger has been killed I see. There will be a lot more like him with the crowd of left wing loonbags that are back there running the show. The people deserve everything they have coming to them. The country is filled with ostriges worried about 2nd hand smoke, global warming and queers getting married.

Anyway it is nice to see John Gilligan is out of jail and is now the mayor. Just how many knackers live in this place anyway

youngdan wrote:

Some poor codger has been killed I see. There will be a lot more like him with the crowd of left wing loonbags that are back there running the show. The people deserve everything they have coming to them. The country is filled with ostriges worried about 2nd hand smoke, global warming and queers getting married.

Anyway it is nice to see John Gilligan is out of jail and is now the mayor. Just how many knackers live in this place anyway

Has the Democratic win in the US caused you pain youngdan? You don't sound happy.

Has anyone reason to be happy. I would be a lot unhappier if McCain had won. If McCain had won and had picked an Israeli soldier as his WH chief all the left loons would be screaming. When Obama does it they convince themselves of who knows what or ignore it and pretend it is not so. Reality is inconvienent.

Now with this codger dead we will see plenty of crying. The loons will stay quiet for a few days and then will demand that money be allocated to alleviate poverty. They think it was the fault of some rich man. It was everybodies fault except the knacker that shot him. It is a wonder some loon is not calling for stricter gun laws, thats what happens here. Everyone will be calling for more cops and more laws. Politicians will come and say whatever is needed will be given to the cops.

Nobody though will say what needs to be said. A man must be allowed to defend himself. I wish I was there with 2 machine guns. I bet that when this poor man realised what was happening he wished he had the means to defend himself. Most likely he never ran from the thug in his life before this.

But now he is dead at 27. So there are 3 options to my mind. Round them up and exile or kill the knackers, give everybody a gun or just shag off back to Dublin and admit defeat. The government admiting defeat may be the best option because at least they would be dealing with the real world.

There's a very strong possibility that the young man killed in Limerick was related to Mary Harney's husband. I'll tell ye once it's confirmed one way or the other.

There is plenty of wild talk about how to deal with this. It would have been a lot easier to have stopped it happening in the first place than to clear up the appalling situation that is there now.

The Mayor was saying this morning that they have begged for a dedicated Garda unit to deal with the gangs for years, and all they have got is the same Gards with a fancy uniform of some sort they put on when there is an incident they respond to.

Even at this level, and with witness intimidation, there have been plenty of convictions.

Of course this is not only an income poverty issue, and it it is not a Traveller issue. Its a question of equal rights to law and safety. The main shock about the very tragic death seems to be that the victim lived in a "nice" part of town.

Limerick is the most divided city I know in Ireland. Of the group of small boys who didn't get a secondary school place a couple of years back, how many are still alive, and what are they doing?