Fundraising gig planned for firebombed family

PLANS are under way to hold a fundraising concert for the family that lost a daughter, a grandson and were left homeless when their house was firebombed on Easter Sunday.

Helena O’Dwyer, 25, and her five-year-old nephew, Ryan, died from smoke inhalation after a petrol bomb was thrown in the living room window at Nutley Avenue in Mahon.

The house belongs to Helena’s parents, Joe and Helena Snr. Their other daughter, Dawn, and her two children, also lived with them. The family didn’t even have clothes to wear after fleeing their burning house in their nightwear.

A fundraising account has also been opened at St Michael’s Credit Union on Skehard Road in Blackrock.

Proceeds from bingo at the community centre next week have already been earmarked for the fund.

Joe O’Dwyer said yesterday that prior to her death, Helena was considering being re-housed elsewhere because of a series of death threats and had even considered moving to Co Tipperary, where Joe comes from.

He says she was “genuinely frightened” despite being a “tough enough individual.”

She was “jumpy at a knock on the door”, he said.

Joe and his wife are staying in a hotel in Co Cork.

Dawn and her two children, who were in the house at the time of the fire bombing, are staying with friends.

Josephine, Ryan’s mother, is staying on Cork’s northside, and was not at Nutley Avenue at the time of the fire.

Ryan was on his usual Saturday night visit to his grandparents. He was asleep upstairs when the petrol bomb came through the living room window and it was his aunts, Dawn and Helena who heard the bang.

“AlI I recall is screaming,” said Joe. “I was in the front bedroom upstairs. Ryan had been playing on his MP3 player and had dozed off. I heard Dawn screaming and I came out of the bedroom and the place was covered in smoke.

“Helena was at the top of the stairs with her daughter, Courtney. I grabbed Courtney to get out and fell at the bottom of the stairs but I got Courtney out. Dawn and her two kids came running out after me.

“My wife Helena, she fell down the stairs and was pulled outside from the hall. I went back upstairs to get Ryan and got halfway up stairs but was pulled out by neighbour, Joe Moynihan. It’s all a daze.”

No funeral details are available as the O’Dwyers are waiting for family to return from Britain.

It’s likely they will look to be re-housed after the funerals.

* The O’Dwyer Family Fund is at St Michael’s Credit Union, Skehard Road, Blackrock. Account no: 18140T.