Gunman arrested after hospital stay

A WOULD-BE assassin who ended up in hospital after being attacked in a Limerick pub when he went to shoot a customer was arrested yesterday after he was allowed out of the Mid-Western Regional Hospital.

The man in his 30s was flattened by customers — led by two women in their 30s — when he produced a sawn-off shotgun in a packed Quilty’s Bistro Lounge in Thomondgate on Sunday night.

Such was the beating he received that gardaí rushed him to hospital where he was kept for two nights. One of the woman who tackled him was with the intended target, a man who was shot twice last year. This man was wearing a bullet-proof vest. A sawn-off shotgun loaded with three cartridges was handed over to gardaí when they went to the bar. The man who went to carry out the shooting did not even bother to cover his face and is a well-known criminal.

A boy, aged five, who was passing the front door of the pub collapsed in fear when he saw the gunman approach with the sawn-off shotgun and had to receive medical treatment. The bar was closed shortly after the incident, which occurred at 8.30pm on Sunday night, to allow gardaí carry out a forensic examination of the scene and to access the extensive CCTV system throughout the premises.

The arrested man was being held last night at Mayorstone Garda Station under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act.