‘The guards won’t be here’

JOHN CARTHY who was shot dead by gardaí outside his home in Longford three years ago told a neighbour the day before the siege: “The party’s over, there will be no more laughing and the guards won’t be here anymore.”

Next door neighbour Alice Farrelly told the Barr Tribunal yesterday she wasn’t afraid of John Carthy, who died in the Abbeylara siege.

The tribunal is investigating events surrounding the siege that ended on April 20, 2000 when members of the Garda Emergency Response Unit shot dead the 27-year-old Co Longford man.