Three men jailed for violent burglaries in rural county Limerick seven years ago have launched appeals against their convictions.

A mother who had been recovering from breast cancer yesterday relived, along with her husband and their four young children, a night of terror when an armed gang burst into their rural home in Co Limerick.

A father and son have appeared in court today charged in connection with a violent burglary and false imprisonment of three elderly siblings, and a separate aggravated robbery on a family of six.