Limerick man sentenced to 9 years for drive-by shooting

A man who drove into a busy housing estate on a summer’s afternoon, opening fire on a number of people as children played nearby, acted in a cold and calculated way, a judge said yesterday when sentencing him to nine years in jail.

Thomas McCarthy, a 34-year-old father of two with an address at Sli na Milaoise, Rathkeale, Co Limerick, was found guilty by a jury at Limerick Circuit Court in June of carrying out the gun attack in Castleview Estate, Newcastle West, in which brother and sister Gerard and Colette Hennessy were wounded.

Mr Hennessy was so badly injured he had to be airlifted to Cork University Hospital with gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen.