Pensioner ‘was subjected to terror in his home’
At the small farmer’s former home in Cree in a remote part of west Clare yesterday, there was evidence of the two nights of terror that the 68-year-old endured almost two years ago.
The front window closest to the front door of the home remains boarded up with wood — one of the three windows smashed in the first night robbers called looking to rob Michael in Feb 2012.
After robbers called again four nights later to rob in total €7,000 from the bachelor, Michael abandoned his home and got on his High Nelly bike to take what Mr Chambers described yesterday as “the lonely road” to Ennis. There Michael checked himself into a nursing home after a gruelling 50km, eight-hour cycle through the night.
Yesterday, Michael’s neighbours were keen to talk about the man, but did not wish to be identified as there is sympathy as well for the local families of the three guilty men involved in robbing Michael.
One neighbour said: “Michael is a very neighbourly, friendly man. When he was passing on his High Nelly, he would always stand and salute you.
“There has been a lot about him living without electricity or water, but he was always well turned out, wearing a shirt and tie for his weekly trip on his bike into town for his shopping.”
She remarked: “To think that this peaceful man was subjected to the terror he suffered is so wrong. It caused huge upset in the area at the time and there was a lot of fear here.”
The woman remembered the day that Michael ‘vanished’ after another neighbour spotted that his windows had been smashed in. She said: “We didn’t know what happened to him.
“I know one elderly lady living in the area who couldn’t live here by herself any longer with the fear after what happened to Michael and she left her home to move into a nursing home in Kilrush.
“There are a lot of elderly people in the area living by themselves and once the light goes out at night, the fear is that you don’t know what might happen.
She said: “Michael is a very private man and you didn’t go in to his home, but you would talk to him from the blue gate. He was just like that.
“Michael was very happy at his home — I don’t know how he lived through the frost there a few years ago, but he did. He had his own little patch for his daffodils and for his turf.”
A male neighbour said: “I have heard that Michael is happy in the nursing home, but it isn’t home. He has always been fit as a fiddle, cycling everywhere on his High Nelly. He is not a nursing home patient, but he is living in fear and won’t come out.”
The man — who also didn’t want to be identified — said that Michael was one of the finest footballers that Cooraclare parish ever produced and had a great knowledge of sport. He said: “Michael never had a television before, but I believe he was delighted to be able to see the Clare hurlers win the All-Ireland this year on the TV.”
Another woman who knows Michael said: “What happened to Michael was wrong and there were a lot of robberies in the area at the time and people were afraid.”
Mr Chambers said: “People would be very angry for a man having to go out of his own house.
“The house was his domain — it was a grand little house, but to say that you had to walk out of your home and not come back — that is difficult to take because Michael had a nice life here.”
Mr Chambers said that the robbery on Michael’s home was one of a spate of robberies that occurred in the west Clare area at the time.
He said: “There had been petty crime here before, but never anything like what happened to Michael. There was a lot of fear in the area at the time, especially amongst the old people.”
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