This article is from page 14 of the 2014-01-07 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 14 JPG
A MOTHER has spoken of the terror felt by her family when their home was the target of a suspected gun attack in Ennis last week.
Shots were fired at a family home in the Cloughleigh area of the town in the early hours of New Year’s morning. No one was injured in the attack but windows and the front door of the house were damaged.
A husband and wife and seven children including a one-year-old girl were in the house at the time. A 46-year-old man was questioned and subsequently released without charge.
Gardaí in Ennis yesterday issued a renewed appeal for information.
They are interested in a grey saloon type car that was seen leaving the area at the time with two occupants on board. A garda spokesman said that investigations into the matter are ongoing. A large downstairs window and door remained boarded over at the house yesterday.
In her sitting room, the mother of eight, who was present in the house on the night, relived the horror of the attack.
The couple were upstairs watching television having just returned from a New Year’s Eve party when they heard the sound of windows breaking, according to the woman.
“We looked out and saw three men well known to us driving a silver private car. We shouted down at them,” she said.
The woman, who did not want her name to be published, said shots were then fired at the front door and at the upstairs bedroom window where her husband was standing while “rocks came through the sitting room win- dow”.
The couple’s daughters (ages eight, three and 16) and one-year-old grandchild were asleep upstairs at the time. Their three sons were asleep in a downstairs bedroom.
“We were terrified but the kids were probably more terrified,” the woman said.
The incident may be linked to a recent court case in Ennis, which the family had no direct involvement in.
The woman says the family’s car has previously been damaged while she says her son was the victim of a serious assault in Ennis last June.
She said, “We feel like our lives have been taken away from us. We are afraid for our children.
“We know nothing about any feuding that’d be going on in this town. We have nothing to do with anything like that. My husband has never been in trouble in his life. All we want is justice for this.”
Members of Ennis Town Council will meet in private today to discuss the incident in Cloughleigh.
Independent councillor Paul O’Shea yesterday warned that lives will be lost if violent incidents in Ennis do not stop.