Pipe bomb attack in Cork may be linked to feud

Gardaí in Cork are investigating whether a pipe bomb attack on a house on the southside of the city is linked to an ongoing feud between two families in the area.

The device was discovered by a man at the back of his house at Plunkett Road in Ballyphehane about 10am yesterday.

The man placed the device in a pram and wheeled it for several hundred metres from his home to Togher Garda station on Tramore Road.

Gardaí immediately recognised the device as a pipe bomb and evacuated the station before contacting the army bomb disposal team from Collins Barracks.

Gardaí also closed off sections of both Pouladuff Road and Tramore Road as the bomb disposal team examined the device before making it safe in the grounds of the Garda station.

Serious injury

A Defence Forces spokesman confirmed that the device was viable and capable of causing serious injury or possibly death if it had exploded.

Bomb disposal experts handed over the dismantled device to Garda technical experts to carry out a forensic examination to see if it would provide any clues as to who was responsible.

Gardaí are satisfied that the man who brought the device to the station was not the intended target.

One line of inquiry the gardaí are pursuing is whether yesterday’s attack is linked to an ongoing feud between two families in the Ballyphehane and Togher areas of Cork.

In particular they are investigating whether the pipe bomb may have been linked to a petrol bomb attack on a house in Blackwater Grove in Togher late last Friday night.

The petrol bomb failed to ignite when it was thrown at the door of the house and Garda technical experts later carried out a forensic examination of the remains of the device.

Violence

A woman in her late 50s was alone in the house at the time and was uninjured but was said to be shaken by the attack which gardaí believe is linked to the feud.

The feud has already resulted in the death of one man from one family while two members of the other family are serving sentences for feud-related violence.