Gardaí hunt armed raiders

GARDAI´ are still searching for a gang who held a family at gunpoint and fired a shot into a bedroom ceiling during a raid on a rural pub.

The owner of the pub, Eugene O’Callaghan, described how he woke to find one of the armed and masked raiders in his bedroom. “We had a very frightening encounter. My wife and my two daughters were in the house at the time. We were very lucky,” Mr O’Callaghan said.

The men, who were wearing balaclavas, broke into the bar at approximately 4.20am yesterday and woke the O’Callaghan family who were upstairs.

They verbally threatened the family and demanded the takings. To emphasise that they meant business, one of the gang then pointed a sawn-off shotgun towards the ceiling and fired.

The masked men then made the family hand over some money, believed to be slightly over 1,200.

They then escaped in a car which they had parked earlier outside the pub, The Diamond, in Béal na Bláth, Co Cork. Garda forensic experts examined the scene yesterday and analysed pellets which were fired by the gunman and lodged in the second floor ceiling.

The man leading the investigation, Supt Vincent Duggan, said he was unsure if there were two or more men in the gang. Anybody with information is asked to contact Macroom gardaí at (026) 41724.