Tag: robbery

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Galway – County Clare – 1892

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The Cork Examiner, 1st March 1892

Photo: Norma Scheibe
Photo: Norma Scheibe

Strange Robbery of Arms
(Central News Telegram) Galway, Monday.
On Saturday evening the Naval Reserve Armoury, just outside this town, was broken into and its contents, consisting of twenty-three Martini-Henri rifles and seventeen cutlasses, were stolen. For many years these arms were stored in the police barracks, but recently they were removed to the armoury. No guard was kept at this place, and the door was fastened by an ordinary padlock, which could be picked with little difficulty. The police have been scouring the countryside since the robbery was discovered, but the thieves have not yet been traced. One of the cutlasses, however, and a ramrod, have been found on a road leading to the shore of the bay. It is conjectured that the robbers crossed in a boat from the County Clare, and made their escape with their booty the same way. Today her Majesty’s cutter Fly conveyed a party of police across the bay to County Clare to join in the search.

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A sensational incident – 1911

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Connacht Tribune 15th July, 1911 p.4 (abridged)

Photo: EO'D
Photo: EO’D

On Friday morning of last week, about 4.30 a.m., the mail car from Kinvara to Ballyvaughan was held up at Curranroo, Co. Clare, by an armed man, who sprang from behind a wall and, pointing a revolver at the driver, shouted, “Hands up,” and took possession of the horse and car.
The first intimation the driver got that anything was wrong was when he espied a wall built across the road a few hundred yards from Curranroo in the Newquay direction on top of a hill near the house of James McNerney. He was in the act of dismounting in order to remove the obstruction when a man, wearing a mask, with a slouch hat on one side of his head and a “speck” cap on the other, who had, evidently concealed himself in a sandpit for some time previously where he had an uninterrupted view of the Kinvara road and of the mail car approaching, sprang out on the road and presented a revolver heavily mounted, and obviously of an American type, and commanded the driver to walk towards Kinvara until the junction at Corker Hill – the boundary of Clare and Galway – was reached.  He drove off with the car and horse and made by the new line in the direction of Corofin.

The driver retraced his steps when he saw he was out of danger and reported the matter to the police at Newquay. The police immediately set out on bicycles and some of the letters were found scattered a few miles away at Funshin, and the other three bags were found near Cappamore, Kinvara.

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Gort – 1790

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Berrow’s Worcester Journal 28th January, 1790 (abridged)

EO'D
EO’D

Friday night a desperate gang of eight or ten fellows, well armed, and with their faces covered, entered the dwelling house of Colonel Blaquiere, near Gort, and after tying the family, plundered the house of what valuable articles they could get at.

They entered at the window of the Colonel’s bed-chamber, who, notwithstanding his being overpowered by numbers, made a most brave resistance, nor did he submit until totally surrounded and covered with wounds, when the inhuman villains tied him, with his head downward, in which pitiable situation he remained bleeding at every pore, until some of the family were enabled to extricate themselves, and go to his assistance; after which the neighbourhood was alarmed, and a spirited pursuit immediately commenced by the gentlemen. The villains to expedite their retreat, took two horses from the Colonel’s stable, but left behind them a blunderbuss, a pistol, an old riding-coat, and two bludgeons.