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A farmer who was injured and his dog killed in a shooting incident on Friday morning claimed it was part of dispute over a “right of way” to his land.
John Hayes (65) said he was confronted as he went to cut grass on his family’s nine acres of farmland at Kildimo, Co Limerick.
A shot was fired, grazing his shoulder, he said, and fatally injuring his sheepdog Lassie.
Gardaí arrested a man in his 70s shortly after the shooting, which occurred at about 10.45am.
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“I was going up to my farm to cut and manure my field, and then this lad wouldn’t allow me up to the field,” Mr Hayes said.
“He told me I wasn’t going up,” Mr Hayes continued. “He pulled a gun out of the back of his van and fired a shot at me. It shot in through the window of my tractor and killed my dog inside.”
Mr Hayes said he retreated from the scene in his tractor. He was later taken by ambulance to University Hospital Limerick and treated for a minor gunshot wound.
He returned home awaiting the arrival of his shocked family who had landed at Shannon Airport after they had spent a holiday in Portugal.
“I’ll have some news for them. I’m fairly shook up by it,” he said.
Right of way
Mr Hayes claimed the shooting was linked to local dispute over a right of way.
“It’s going on for the past 10 years. I’m sick if it,” he said. “I’ve had a right of way here for 60 years. It was my mother Maura’s and my father Jeremiah’s land, but they have since passed on. My father died when I was only two.”
Armed gardaí responded to the incident, and shortly afterward they intercepted a man in his 70s a short distance away, in Patrickswell.
“We have one person arrested for questioning. He was arrested under the Offences Against the State Act and he’s being held under section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act,” a Garda spokesman said.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Newcastle West Garda station.