
Gardai investigate latest ‘feud-related’ shooting in Limerick’s Hyde Road area
Gardai have confirmed they are investigating a shooting in the Hyde Road area of Limerick that is linked to an ongoing feud.
In this latest incident, a firearm was discharged late on Thursday night.
A video that has been widely shared on social media shows gardai at the scene of the shooting.
No injuries have been reported, however, a Garda spokesperson confirmed they are investigating “all the circumstances” of the incident that occurred at approximately 11pm.
“The investigation is ongoing,” the garda spokesperson said.
It’s understood that the incident is connected to a local feud which has erupted in recent months.
Earlier this month, gardai issued an appeal for information on a blue hatchback car that was seen in the Ballinacurra Weston area of Limerick city where shots were fired on the evening of Monday, January 6.
No injuries were reported in that incident that occurred at approximately 6.30pm on Hyde Avenue.
In November of last year, a number of shots were discharged from a firearm at a residence on Hyde Road, on the south side of Limerick City.
Gardaí were probing whether the gun attack was linked to an ongoing feud between parties living in the Ballinacurra Weston and Southill areas of the Treaty City.
Up to a dozen violent incidents, including pipe bomb attacks and arson attacks, had occurred in the area with tensions rising between those involved.
The Garda Armed Emergency Response Unit (ERU) had been drafted into Limerick City as a result and was conducting nightly armed checkpoints in flash point areas.
The ERU were deployed to Limerick to assist local armed units and uniformed members involved in a policing operation set up to target the activities of those involved in the feud.

The feud had been bubbling up over the year with several shootings and other violence leading to a number of persons being injured and others brought before the courts.
A local policing operation led by Chief Superintendent Derek Smart had also been established to thwart the actions of those involved.
On October 24 last, Chief Smart warned of Garda fears that children would be injured in the rising violence.
The senior Garda said that “since October 12, a number of cars have been targeted and set on fire and a number of houses and very badly damaged as a result of the attacks upon them”.
“These attacks are confined between two groupings of peoples, they are both known to each other, and they both live on the south side of Limerick City.”
“They are not random attacks, they are very targeted in what they are trying to achieve.”
Chief Supt Smart said that those involved were “putting fear into people, and putting lives at risk”.
He pledged gardaí would “make sure that people that are involved in these incidents are held to account for their actions”.
Limerick Sinn Fein TD, Maurice Quinlivan, who sits on the local joint policing committee, warned that “lives will be lost” unless gardai meet those involved in the feuding with a “forceful response”.
“These incidents are taking place in working communities where the vast majority of people want to work and provide for their families. But they are being plagued by criminal gangs who seem to operate without sanction.
“These communities have little Garda presence and, as across Limerick, they have long been left without a community Garda for some time.”
Mr Quinlivan warned: If these firebomb incidents continue, it is inevitable that there will be a loss of life.”
In October 2023, a man in his 30s suffered injuries when he was attacked in Limerick city in the early hours of the morning of Saturday 28.
Gardaí and emergency services rushed to the scene shortly after 3.10am following reports of a disturbance involving a group of people on Hyde Road.
It was just the latest in a series of tit for tat incidents in the area that was once the home of the notorious Dundon brothers.
In one of the incidents earlier that month, we reported how the home of Limerick gangland figure Jimmy Collins on Hyde Road became the target of a gun attack.
It’s understood the clash was sparked by tensions between two low-level drug dealers in the area and Collins’ son-in-law, Thomas O’Neill.
O’Neill, who is married to April Collins, has a long track record of violence and hit the headlines in 2004 as a 16-year-old when convicted of an horrific gang rape in the Cratloe Woods, Co. Clare.
The suspected drug-dealers believed to have been involved in the gun attack are said to be supplied by the gangland faction controlled by Eds McCarthy, a relative of the Dundon brothers.
Sources say that, along with his brother ‘Fat’ John McCarthy, the gang is considered one of the strongest operating in the city.
April Collins previously gave evidence against John and Wayne, the brothers of her ex-partner Ger Dundon, who were both convicted of murder and jailed for life.
In another incident in July a man was injured when a pipe bomb exploded on Hyde Road, damaging two houses.