Man has narrow escape in garden pipe bomb blast
Army experts last night said the device was a “fairly elaborate pipe bomb” with “lethal potential”.
Gardaí set up a major investigation yesterday amid concerns that the Continuity IRA may have been involved in supplying the bomb.
The dissident republican group is believed to be supplying its bomb-making expertise to criminals and has been linked to at least one other pipe bomb device in the same Dublin area, in January 2005.
The bomb exploded in the front garden of the man’s house on Glin Road at around 4.45pm yesterday.
It’s understood the man and other people were moving a car in the driveway when they saw something fall off the boot of the car.
They saw the device, which had been wrapped up, broken open on the ground.
“They could hear something ticking and they ran. It then exploded,” said one source.
Neighbours more than five doors down the road said they heard a large blast.
“I heard a big explosion. It woke me up. All the windows shook,” said Martin Farrelly.
Gardaí from Coolock Station arrived quickly and sealed off the area. Forensic experts were examining the area last night.
“A device went off on Glin Road before 5pm. An Army EOD (explosive ordinance disposal) team was sent out to the scene. There were no injuries,” said a garda spokeswoman.
A spokesman for the Defence Forces last night confirmed the device was a pipe bomb.
“It was fairly elaborate. It was not highly sophisticated, but it had lethal potential.”
The spokesman said that luckily the nails and shotgun pellets in the device did not project out and only the interior exploded.
“The interior of the pipe, about six inches long, exploded. Part of it was embedded in the car.”
Local Sinn Féin councillor Larry O’Toole said he spoke to the man’s wife after the incident.
“She was very upset. It’s a very disturbing development, a bomb going off in a built-up residential area.”
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