Morris Tribunal: Drunk revellers fell fighting out of club

A Donegal market town descended into mayhem and a near riot on Friday nights as hundreds of young drinkers left a popular nightclub, a garda corruption inquiry heard today.

Amid claims local gardaí harassed club owners the McBrearty family, the Morris Tribunal was told youths as young as 15 fell from the premises fighting, vomiting and urinating on the street.

Superintendent Philip Lyons was asked to report on disturbances outside Frankie’s by a senior officer and described it as the worst he had seen in 30 years policing.

He told the inquiry he feared someone could have died.

“It was out of control,” the Superintendent said.

“They (the crowd) might not have had a common purpose but they were all doing their own bits of skirmishing here and there, it was a serious situation.”

Mr Lyons was sent to Raphoe over a weekend in July 1997 and asked to report back to his seniors at Letterkenny Station. He described the scene as wholesale drunkenness and savagery and claimed the club owners allowed drunkenness of an extreme nature.

On a Friday night punters paid £1(€1.40) to get into Frankie’s and drink was offered for as little as £1. Up to 900 people could have been in the club.

Bus loads of revellers came from towns over the border in the North and Mr Lyons said there were youths as young as 15, 16 and 17.

The McBreartys deny underage drinking went on in the club.

But Mr Lyons insisted three youths who had been assaulted were underage and had been in the nightclub.

He told the inquiry a 16-year-old girl had been attacked and needed medical care, a young man had been punched five times in the face by a bouncer and another young man had a bottle smashed in his face but was denied medical care by staff.

Mr Lyons said the revellers were too young to cope with the cheap drink on offer.

“Some of them were supporting each other, there were young girls getting sick, vomiting on the side of the street,” he said

“There were girls fighting, rolling on the ground fighting.”

Mr Lyons said Frank McBrearty Senior stood outside the club with members of staff watching the scene, but did nothing to bring control.

There were two sergeants and 11 gardaí on duty with Mr Lyons but he said that was not enough to restore order.

He went back with a smaller team the following night but there was no repeat of the disturbances.

Saturday night at Frankie’s was a dance which attracted an older crowd.

But Mr Lyons said bar staff continued to serve after hours. The McBrearty’s drink licence ran until 11.30pm while the dance licence allowed people on the premises until 2am on condition no alcohol was sold.

Mr Lyons said he witnessed the rules being broken first hand.