A Donegal man is one of four men who have gone on trial for their alleged roles in an attack on a number of security guards at a repossessed home near Strokestown in Co Roscommon in 2018.
They are: Patrick Sweeney of High Cairn, Ramelton, Co Donegal; Martin O’Toole of Stripe, Irishtown, Claremorris, Co Mayo; Paul Beirne of Croghan, Boyle, Co Roscommon and David Lawlor of Bailis Downs, Navan, Co Meath.
It is the State’s case that at about 5am on the 16th of December 2018, up to 30 people wearing balaclavas arrived at the property armed with chains, pickaxe handles, a meat cleaver, bats and a hurley.
The door was smashed in with a sledgehammer and four security men, who were guarding the house, were seriously assaulted.
Their vehicles were set on fire.
The prosecuting barrister Tony McGillicuddy SC, said it would be alleged that the four men on trial took part in what he described as the “sustained and brutal violence” which was designed, in his words, to “terrorise” the men working there.
The jurors were told the small traditional farm holding at the centre of this case was the subject of court proceedings that led to it being repossessed, and that days before this attack, the owner was forcibly removed by persons engaged on behalf of the bank.
