Suburbia in shock after shootings

Rochford is a typical new middle-class estate.

It boasts rows of neat semi-detached or terraced homes with plenty of spacious green areas for kids and families to play.

All the greens are mowed and there isn’t a spot of litter or broken glass to be seen anywhere.

Most of the car spaces are empty. There are no responses from many of the homes when reporters and gardaí canvassing the area go knocking.

Rochford Estate, part of the new Kilcock that sprouted around the village in the last decade, is stone quiet. The only evidence of anything untoward is a flapping white and blue Garda tape cordoning off a stretch of homes on Rochford Avenue.

It was here, in the middle house of a row of three terraced homes, that at least two gunmen shot dead two men and almost succeeded in killing two others.

“Everyone is still in shock,” said a young Eastern European man, who lives nearby with his wife and children.

He said he woke at about 10pm, but did not hear any shots.

It was only at 10.45pm, when he went out to do his night shift, that he saw ambulances and Garda cars assembled on the road, lights flashing and Garda tape being pulled around, sealing off the area.

“It is very quiet around here, very safe,” he said, inviting the Irish Examiner into his house.

“My son plays in the green out there. What has happened is not going to change that. This is not the Bronx. We’ve never had any problems around here.”

Another neighbour, a woman in her early 50s, said she heard bangs at about 10.15pm.

“I don’t know what a gunshot sounds like. You don’t know who is living among us.”

Neither knew Andy Barry, the 31-year-old gang enforcer, who was the main target of the attack.

A woman who lived nearby did know him, but was reluctant to say too much.

“I knew his name,” she said. “I knew he was not a nice person, that’s all I’d say.”