A FEAR barrier built up through crime and violence was last night broken down for more than 100 Limerick people.

ARMED members of the Garda Regional Response Unit monitored the funeral of Limerick crime boss Philip Collopy yesterday, as a horse-drawn hearse bearing an aluminium casket made its way through the city centre.

A LIMERICK gangland figure who shot himself on Saturday remained on a life support machine last night.

A TERRIFIED Limerick widow was still in hospital last night after her house came under fire in the city’s latest gun attack.

The fatal shooting of a man in north Dublin has sparked a murder investigation, gardaí said today.

THE sprawling housing estates of Moyross and St Mary’s Park were under virtual garda lockdown last night following the murder earlier in the day of Noel Campion in Thomondgate.

POPULAR youth-driven website Bebo says it will use its experience of Northern Irish sectarianism to combat Limerick teenagers going online to stoke the city’s violent family feuds.

LIMERICK’S teenage gangs are using the Bebo social networking website to live out their fantasies of becoming gun-touting crime lords.

Gardaí in Limerick may have foiled a serious feud-related incident at the weekend after a 44-year-old van driver was arrested in possession of a shotgun and ammunition.

SPORT is the key to breaking the spiral of gang warfare and poverty in Limerick, former rugby star Gerry McLoughlin believes.

THE Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) last night promised further action on Limerick’s feuding crime gangs after it was allowed to seize the home of convicted criminal Brian Collopy.

LIMERICK City Council may have to spend three quarters of a million euro next year to buy houses in three trouble estates to prevent them falling into the hands of criminal gangs.

THE garda station on King’s Island is boarded up.

Gardaí investigating a brutal gangland killing in Limerick have examined the remains of a burned-out car which may have belonged to the murder victim.