Roscrea

thebaz

How can one man , with a questionable past, close down a whole town for a day. By boards standards i am fairly liberal, but would this selfish act be tolerated in other countrys today, i think not .

InFront

He wasn't walking around with a placard, you know, it was quite a dodgy situation for the police, and I'm sure everyone is just glad that nobody got hurt.

connundrum

thebaz wrote:

How can one man , with a questionable past, close down a whole town for a day.

By threatening to blow himself up. I would have thought that would have been fairly self explainatory.

With reports that he doused himself in petrol and had several canisters of gas, I'm glad that they shut the town down.

Sounds a bit more serious than an unattended bag in Dublin Airport - see what happened there :rolleyes:

Terry

what's going on here?

InFront

Link

Terry

thanks.

what a ****ing nutball.
what's the criteria for getting a gun thesedays anyway?

thebaz

heres a picture of him calmly leaving his house with his dog , after he has disrupted a whole town fo a day
http://www.ireland.com/
sorry i think it is unreal in modern ireland, that one man can hold a whole town to ransom for the day, so as to get his way .

InFront

Only in Ireland could the peaceful resolution a potentially violent (and fatal) siege by the police be met with the complaint 'only in Ireland'. What would you prefer they did?

I also don't know if you know Roscrea, but that street isn't itself a shopping area, and can quite easily be avoided without hassle.

Wertz

So this is over?

I had to laugh on the lunchtime news today, where the reporter mentioned that the guy had gone "for a lie down" at some stage during the early morning.....umm, call me crazy but isn't that about the time you send in some guys with a net, a foam extinguisher and a big stick and drag the guy out?
No, no, let the guy have his snooze and cause havoc for another half a day; how typically bloody Irish.

I'm just glad it didn't end up like the Carthy case....the guy obviously has a grievance (something about clerical sex abuse case)....but this is hardly the best way to get a point across. It certainly should be punished to avoid copycats with similar grievances in future IMO.

Ruu_Old

I was worried that the Gardai were going to screw this up as well, glad it ended anyway.

FlutterinBantam

Nooooooo way the Gardaí were goin to screw up on this one... presume this dude will be sued for loss of business /disruption etc.?

Day-wanna-wonga

thebaz wrote:

How can one man , with a questionable past, close down a whole town for a day. By boards standards i am fairly liberal, but would this selfish act be tolerated in other countrys today, i think not .

Read the article again - the police sectioned off a PART of the town. Where did you get "whole" from?? And sectioning off PART of a crappy small town, equates to about a 50m stretch of road - hardly as scandalous as you're implying.

connundrum

FlutterinBantam wrote:

presume this dude will be sued for loss of business /disruption etc.?

Nah sure they woulda been glad of the gossip

It would seem that he was a decent guy, who had a crapload of issues and just lost the plot. It could happen to the best of us.. that said I dunno how many of us would threaten to blow a town centre up, but that's for another day

Rovi

julep wrote:

what's the criteria for getting a gun thesedays anyway?

Present yourself at your local Garda Station with the details of your proposed firearm as supplied by your firearms dealer, and fill in Form PC-20 with the help of the Firearms Officer. This will go to the District Superintendent, who will decide whether or not to issue you with a Firearms Certificate. This will change somewhat over the next few months when the new legislation is brought into effect, when applications for 'Restricted Firearms' (large caliber rifles, handguns, etc.) will go to Garda Headquarters for assessment.

Anyhow, this is all O.T.; what has it got to do with the 'siege' in Roscrea?

.

\m/_(>_<)_\m/

Ruu wrote:

I was worried that the Gardai were going to screw this up as well, glad it ended anyway.

they would have... but lucky some professionals stepped in and conducted the negotoations for them

Black Swan

With all the publicity, I hope there are no copy cats!

_feedback_

Wertz wrote:

I had to laugh on the lunchtime news today, where the reporter mentioned that the guy had gone "for a lie down" at some stage during the early morning.....umm, call me crazy but isn't that about the time you send in some guys with a net, a foam extinguisher and a big stick and drag the guy out?
No, no, let the guy have his snooze and cause havoc for another half a day; how typically bloody Irish.

because he had told them he had a homemade explosive in the house.. Why because the gardai and whoever else involved took an approach that they thought was safe and logical, does it have to be typically irish?? If they had gone in to the house and caused an explosive to go off causing injuries and possibly a death, would that have been typically irish aswell? no matter what these guys do, it's never right. It was a very diffucult situation to handle and I believe they handled it very well and came out with the best possible result. typically irish?

\m/_(>_<)_\m/

elviscostello wrote:

because he had told them he had a homemade explosive in the house.. Why because the gardai and whoever else involved took an approach that they thought was safe and logical, does it have to be typically irish?? If they had gone in to the house and caused an explosive to go off causing injuries and possibly a death, would that have been typically irish aswell? no matter what these guys do, it's never right. It was a very diffucult situation to handle and I believe they handled it very well and came out with the best possible result. typically irish?

i agree... they handled it very well, in fact they handled it the best way any guard could handle any situation...
head off for lunch and call his solicitor in to talk him out...a lesson they learned form abbylara

thebaz

i am not blaming the gardai, but i believe there will be many more similar incidents , with citizens with grievences , remeber the Afghans in the cathedral -- after the McCarthy and Donegal incidents , the gardai have there hands tied a bit , obviously i'm glad no one was injured , but is a trend developing with people not getting there way with the state .. i'm currently pissed off with some motoring offences i have received , but i don't plan to hold others to ransom over it !

_feedback_

thebaz wrote:

i am not blaming the gardai, but i believe there will be many more similar incidents , with citizens with grievences , remeber the Afghans in the cathedral -- after the McCarthy and Donegal incidents , the gardai have there hands tied a bit , obviously i'm glad no one was injured , but is a trend developing with people not getting there way with the state .. i'm currently pissed off with some motoring offences i have received , but i don't plan to hold others to ransom over it !

That's true.. Forget the circumstances in the church, they weren't eating as far as i remember but can't remember why they were in there for so bloody long! But yeah, see what you mean.. You can sit in your car cos you're pissed off, and tell them there's a bomb in there with you. And they have to take you seriously, similar to any threat with airlines etc etc. Hopefully it doesn't catch on as the way to go! it's definately a waste of resources.

\m/_(>_<)_\m/

thebaz wrote:

but i don't plan to hold others to ransom over it !

i thought he was in the house on his own.

Terry

Rovi wrote:

Anyhow, this is all O.T.; what has it got to do with the 'siege' in Roscrea?

.

i was wondeering someone who is obviously mentally unstable could get their hands on a gun.

typo left in becasue it's mildly amusing.

Rovi

julep wrote:

i was wondeering someone who is obviously mentally unstable could get their hands on a gun.

Well, 'any person of unsound mind' is specifically prohibited by legislation from possessing firearms, so I don't suppose this guy will be getting a Certificate any time soon.

.

Wertz

elviscostello wrote:

because he had told them he had a homemade explosive in the house.. Why because the gardai and whoever else involved took an approach that they thought was safe and logical, does it have to be typically irish?? If they had gone in to the house and caused an explosive to go off causing injuries and possibly a death, would that have been typically irish aswell? no matter what these guys do, it's never right. It was a very diffucult situation to handle and I believe they handled it very well and came out with the best possible result. typically irish?

The way the reporter on the scene put it across in his piece made it look as if the convo went something along these lines:

Man with bomb: "Hmm, I'm feeling a wee bit tired here what with all the goings on all night....I was thinking about trying to catch a bit of shut eye for a few hours? That okay with ye?"

Garda in charge: "Oh, okay....I tell you what, the lads were all feeling a bit peckish anyhow, so maybe we could all pop off for a bit of tea and maybe some sambos or what have you....we can all be back here in say, 3 hours? How would that suit?"

Man: "Ah that's fine lads. I'll try and not blow the place up while ye are away. Don't be trying anything sneaky now..."

Garda: "haha, come on now, it's not as if we're going to shoot you in your sleep or anything now is it? Don't be talking to any reporters on the phone or anything...we'd prefer it if you didn't get all the attention you're looking in case some nutjob decides to try the same thing above in the big smoke"

Man; "Ah you're a gas man altogether...begone with yis!"

That's how it screamed "typically bloody Irish" to me, in the light hearted sense.

Okay, so that's not how it went down and like I said in my OP, I'm glad it didn't go like the Carthy case and what transpired was probably best for all involved.
But on the flipside, we're a country that has been dealing with the threat of bombings for a fair while now, and yet we still seemingly haven't got the strategies in place to deal with one man and his collection of gas cylinders?
...god forbid it's something a bit less amateurish with more sinister motives next time around.
Oh and surely in cases like this, it's best to keep the suspect off the phone as alluded to above...interviews with reporters, phone calls to friends and such...the only people that should be in contact with someone like this are trained professional negotiators, not some hack from a random tabloid.

Anyway like I said, glad it turned out well and although the man has some problems I still think he should have the full letter of the law read to him, if only to try and deter similar cases...

Marksie

after the abbylara fiasco they have learned.

I dont know if it is "typically Irish" or not... but to me any situation like this, which ends with noone hurt and effectively resolved is a good ending. Doesn't matter where it is

InFront

Did he actually get phonecalls from reporters? You'd think they'd have more sense than that. If you're at your wits end and psychologically insecure with a load of butane the last thing you want is that ginger one from TV3 on the buzzer.

Wertz

Someone in work had a sun or mirror or something that had an "exclusive phone interview" with him...then they take the piss out of him on the front page, slating him for emerging with his dog on a lead after it was over.
I thought common practice in this type of situation is to cut off communications....then agin with mobiles, how easy is it to do that on short notice these days?