Gardaí investigating the petrol bombing of a family home in north Dublin on New Year’s Eve believe it is linked to a previous incident at the same location when a car was deliberately rammed into a house.
They are also reviewing other violent incidents, including windows being broken in houses, an assault and a car ramming in Finglas, on suspicion they are all part of the same campaign of violence over the past year.
When arsonists threw a petrol bomb into the property in Finglas at about 12.45am on Wednesday, they attacked the wrong house, the second time they had mistakenly done so. The flames quickly engulfed the three-storey property on Creston Avenue, Meakstown, Finglas, trapping inside two women, in their 40s and 20s, and three children – a boy and two girls.
[ Gardaí believe wrong house attacked in Finglas petrol bombing that injured fiveOpens in new window ]
The youngest child managed to escape and raise the alarm and the other family members were rescued by neighbours and firefighters. However, the eldest woman and the boy were left in a serious condition in hospital. Garda sources said the victims were lucky to be alive after quick-thinking neighbours saw the flames and began a rescue effort.
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The person believed to be the arsonists’ intended target lives in the Creston area and is linked to gangland criminals in Co Louth. He has been targeted by a Dublin crime gang in recent months as part of a feud. In one of the incidents last year attackers broke windows in Creston but, in the first case of mistaken identity, wrongly targeted the family home that has now been gutted by fire.
[ A year with no gangland gun murders: How one Dublin attack ‘changed everything’Opens in new window ]
The Creston Avenue petrol bombing comes just weeks after a firebombing linked to rival drugs gangs claimed the life of Tadgh Farrell (4) and his grand-aunt Mary Holt (60). Their home in Edenderry, Co Offaly, was targeted on December 6th in an apparent attempt to intimidate a man previously linked to the property.
Two weeks earlier a woman was set on fire at her home in Clondalkin, Dublin, after she was sprayed with accelerant in another act of drug-related intimidation.
Though there were no fatal gangland shootings in 2025, for the first time in decades, gardaí are becoming increasingly concerned about drug-related intimidation. Det Chief Supt Seamus Boland, head of the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, said combating the violence was now a key priority for the Garda.
