AN armed gang escaped with a "substantial" sum of moncy alter tying up and threatening a family at gunpoint in Clondalkin, Dublin, early yesterday morning.
The three man gang entered the house at the Cappaghmore estate shortly before 3 a.m. by removing a glass panel from the back door.
Mr Jack Fagan (68), a butcher, his wife, Jenny (61), who runs a hairdressing salon, and their sons, David and John, aged 22 and 32, were upstairs. Mrs Fagan said the first she knew of the raid was when her bedroom door opened.
"I thought it was my husband," she said. "A man all in black came in. He had a sawn off shotgun and a balaclava. I started to scream and he told me to shut my mouth and said "give me the money'."
"I said there was no money, and he said `I know you well, I am watching you for nine weeks'."
Mrs Fagan said she kept calm as she was tied up with plastic cable ties asking two gang members if they had mothers, and if they thought they were brave tying up a defenceless woman.
"They tied my legs and hands and told me they'd kill my sons," she said. They kept demanding money, but she replied that she wanted to see the rest of the family.
Mrs Fagan said she was taken into another bedroom where her husband and two sons were tied up on the bed, with pillowcases over their heads, and with another gang member standing over them.
They threatened to break her sons' legs and to shoot them.
Mrs Fagan said after she handed over money all four family members were gagged by the three masked men.
"One of them said, `don't worry Missus, I'll ring the police and they'll come in 10 minutes and release you'," she said.
The gang added that they had not harmed the family dog, but later they found it had been thrown over the back wall of the garden.
Mrs Fagan managed to free herself and then her sons and husband. They called the gardai, who came quickly, as did two daughters who live nearby.
She said while the family suffered physical bruising "we are mentally shook more than anything else". It was "a terrible ordeal", she said, adding that she was worried about her husband's health as he had suffered a heart attack last Christmas.
Gardai asked the public to report any suspicious activity in the area between 2.30 a.m. and 4 a.m. The family cars were left outside the house, and it is not known how the gang left the scene.
. A shotgun was fired at two houses in Clondalkin early yesterday morning. Gardai believe the shootings may be linked, but are not connected to the robbery at the Fagan home in Cappaghmore.
In the first incident, a shot was fired at a house at Boot Road at about 3 a.m. Two more shots were fired at a house in Kilmahuddrick walk - one: through the sitting room window and another through the door about an hour later.