'I will never forget it': Neighbours describe horror of Waterford arson attack

Gardaí from the Garda Technical Bureau at the scene of an arson attack. Picture: Neil Michael

"Throw the kids down, throw the kids down".

These were the heart-wrenching and desperate appeals that some on Birchwood woke up to around 5am on Tuesday, as a fatal fire took hold in a house on the estate in Waterford.

Tears streaming down her face, one woman who did not want to be named could barely speak.

“I’ll never forget it,” she told the Irish Examiner. “As soon as I realised what was happening, I tried to help.

“But huge black smoke was coming from the house, and it was just impossible. I could only watch, and I could only listen to those poor people.

“I will never forget it.”

Another resident, who also asked not to be named, said she also heard the anguish of those inside.

“It’s a sound that has just shocked me — people screaming for their lives inside a burning house,” she said.

By the time the last of the hearses left the estate before 10am on Tuesday, and fire engines started to leave, an air of shock still hung over the estate.

People stood in small groups on narrow streets at the back of the family home in which couple Kim and Philip English perished and two of their children, while two more children were left in critical condition. They talked among themselves about their own experience of a night they will never forget.

Community leaders soon arrived and managed to articulate a genuine sense of shock that anybody would do something as horrific as fire bomb anybody, let alone a family with young children in their own home while they slept.

“Nobody deserves that,” said a man before he retreated behind his front door after saying he didn’t want to speak.

Local Sinn Féin councillor Joeanne Bailey said: “Everyone is devastated. “Everyone is in shock. Everyone is sad. It's all the emotions just rolled into one.

“I have friends here in a state, and they started telling me what they saw and what happened. There are people traumatised, and I just really hope that people get the support that they need because it's affected a lot of people.”

Kim and Philip English who died in the house fire with two of their children, while two other children are in hospital.

Her TD colleague David Cullinane said: “My heart is broken. I knew the family. I only met them very recently. This was a very decent family.

“This will have a ripple effect right across Waterford city, and the island of Ireland. It’s very hard to get your head around what happened here.”

Local parish priest Gerry Chestnutt, who knows the family well, also spoke of a devastated community.

He said that he had officiated at family milestones such as baptisms and first communions.

“There is no logical explanation to try and grasp what has happened here,” he said, speaking to reporters on a green park area opposite the English family home.

“Some of the children went to our primary school. It’s a very tight-knit area, and everybody knows everybody.

“This is a very well-known and liked family.”

Waterford City councillor Joe Kelly also spoke of the estate which, he said, was normally a hive of activity.

“You normally see lots of young kids playing about the place while the older kids are at school,” he noted. “The lack of any children playing on the estate is very noticeable. You don’t hear their usual giggles and shrieks of laughter. That’s gone for now.”