'Thoughts and prayers aren't good enough' - A message from Edenderry to the Taoiseach

Last Saturday evening, December 6, began as a joyous one in Edenderry. Hundreds of people lined the streets as the annual Christmas tractor run brought festive cheer to the town. On Friday, December 12, hundreds lined the streets for the funeral procession of little Tadgh Farrell who was killed alongside his grand-aunt Mary Holt in a horrifying petrol bomb attack.

This grief was unimaginable last Saturday evening as kids cheered festive tractors draped in Christmas lights through the town. The gardaí leading that run were soon on a very different assignment when word of the attack in Castleview Park filtered through the town. It’s been said many times in the intervening days, but a dark cloud is hanging over the town. It’s hard to know when, or if, it will ever lift.

Through that outpouring of grief, there is a message from the people of Edenderry to the Taoiseach, Minister for Justice and others who have been speaking this week; we need a full-time Garda station. Michéal Martin and Jim O’Callaghan were quick to condemn the attack and offer condolences to the families, but we really don’t need more virtue-signalling. Thoughts and prayers are not good enough anymore.

I grew up in Edenderry, not far from the scene of last week’s horror. I lived there for almost 30 years and I’ve never known violence like this in my hometown. There has been a shift in the last 20 years and the drug trade is rampant. As it’s grown with younger, more violent thugs at its centre, the population of Edenderry has grown exponentially. And yet, our garda station is rarely open, you never see a garda on the beat, and drug-dealing and debt collection is carried out openly on the streets.

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Dole day in Edenderry turns the main street into a no-go zone. Heavies stand around waiting to pick up someone leaving the Post Office with a fresh wad of cash. They often gather on the Grand Canal harbour and this is all going on as pensioners try to pick up their few bob and locals go about their business. This isn’t happening in back alleys or a few dodgy streets; this is the heart of our town.

Many would argue that an army of gardaí stationed in Edenderry could not have foreseen and stopped last weekend’s attack which left two innocent people dead. Those people are right but they’re missing the point. Everyone in Edenderry has a story of ringing the local garda station and getting no answer, or being put through to Tullamore station a half an hour away. That lack of security makes people feel extremely uneasy, and frankly unsafe. The fact that you could be watching someone break into your house but help will arrive far too late is very unsettling.

We’ve seen the results of a scant garda presence in Edenderry before. A large sum of money was stolen from Tesco in the town in 2017 after a gang triggered the alarm at Clonbullogue Post Office to divert the few garda resources in the area. They then had a free run at more than €60,000 in Tesco. That same year, a man broke nine windows at the garda station, set a fire in Oaklands Community College and damaged a petrol station before gardaí arrived from Tullamore to apprehend him.

Almost 8,000 people now call Edenderry home. That number could be 10,000 by 2030 and yet the doors of the garda station are shuttered most of the time. If it wasn’t so serious, it’s fair to say it’s a running joke in Edenderry that you can never get a guard. A petition for a 24-hour garda station in Edenderry, established in the wake of last Saturday’s attacks, has garnered over 1,000 signatures. It’s reflective of the fears of local people and it shouldn’t be ignored.

During their reporting of the petrol bomb attack, the national media almost painted it as out of kilter with little old rural Ireland. Edenderry is one example of small towns all over rural Ireland plagued with drug crime and the carnage it brings. A tragedy like Saturday night has been brewing for a long time in Edenderry. In May 2024, a viable explosive was found in the same area behind Castleview Park, a matter of metres from the Derry Rovers football ground where a vigil was held to remember Tadgh and Mary earlier this week.

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Prominent Edenderry businessman, Pat McBride, who grew up in the house directly next door to the scene of Saturday’s attack, spoke passionately on Newstalk radio after the walk. He made an important point that people locally shouldn’t be afraid to come forward and speak up to gardaí.

He said: “People shouldn’t go into their shell because of what has happened. People should be able to communicate, talk and help the guards to try and put a stop to this so it never happens again.” He added that people in Edenderry have been living in fear for a long time but perhaps this awful tragedy will wake people up to pressurise every single person in a position of power to help us out of that state.

People are sick of listening to politicians in the last few days, sympathising and calling for this, that and the other. Some of those politicians have never spoken up for Edenderry and the will of the local people to have the security of gardaí 24/7. There appears to be a political currency in latching on now in the wake of tragedy, but we can’t let this issue fade into obscurity again when the attention of the national and international media disappears.

We're not asking for the Earth; we just want a safe town for children like Tadgh Farrell, who should be preparing for Santy next week, to grow up in. Why do we always wait for tragedy in this country before taking action? We want to see gardaí hassling these people on the street, intercepting their every move in relation to their criminality. If they operated in that environment rather than safe in the knowledge that law enforcement is almost always at least 40 minutes away, their actions would naturally be curtailed.

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Lastly, locals who partake in recreational drug use need to own up to their part in the situation. If you trace the cocaine snorted in pub toilets and houses in Edenderry and other local towns this weekend and every week, you’ll end up at the door of the tragedy that befell our town last Saturday. People need to remember that their money fuels this illegal trade, the feuds and the violence that we saw perpetrated against a four-year-old boy and his grand-aunt.

To our Taoiseach, Minister for Justice, TDs and Senators: please don’t let Edenderry fade from your mind next week. Two lives have been sacrificed in our locality due to decades of inaction. Countless more have been lost to the scourge of drug addiction.