Woman (88) left terrified by raid on her home
AN 88-YEAR-OLD woman has spoken of her terrifying ordeal after two callous burglars broke into her rural home, threatened her and stole her pension money.
The elderly lady, who lives in a remote area of Co Offaly, told how two men broke into her home in the latest attack on the vulnerable.
She said: “I was very frightened. They got in through a window. A man in a white cap had a screwdriver in his hand and he caught a hold of my wrist. They broke the door of my wardrobe.”
The men rifled through a number of envelopes which contained a small amount of cash from her pension, she said.
Nicola Anderson ‘She was like a model’ – friends remember ‘elegant’ Rosie
WALKING with a friend past the door of Rosie Hanrahan’s neat-as-a-pin cottage, a teenager paused to bless himself.
Young and old, the people of Thomondgate in Co Limerick have been shaken to the core by the brutal killing of the 78-year-old pensioner described as a vibrant, vital part of her community.
And now the community has been rocked once again, this time by the sudden death of one of Rosie’s friends, who was interviewed on TV following her killing.
Mary Lane, who lived up the road, passed away suddenly on Wednesday in her 50s of a suspected heart condition.
“We’re so upset – it’s a double tragedy,” said neighbour Claire Joyce, who had been friends with Rosie for many years.
Claire used to work with Rosie’s husband, Mick, in the Limerick Civic Trust.
He was a skilled stonemason as well as a fisherman, she revealed, and helped to renovate listed Georgian buildings in the city.
The couple moved into the terraced cottage which backed on to the River Shannon more than 40 years ago and Mick passed away five years ago, after a number of years of illness.
“Rosie nursed him all through that,” said Claire, adding that she had also helped another neighbour who had suffered with cancer and had taken her meals.
“We have a very good bond here on the road – we all look after each other. There are about six or seven of us living alone and there’s another house with four nuns living there,” she said.
But she said they were all now living in fear in the aftermath of this tragedy.
“There are CCTV cameras farther down the road and we are trying to get them brought up farther but it’s slow,” she said.
Claire believes that Rosie may have known her assailant and that she must have surprised him. “It doesn’t make sense otherwise,” she added.
“What happened to Rose, you wouldn’t wish on anyone or for a community for someone to go like that.”
Nothing like this had ever happened here before, she said.
“You might have a car broken into and the pub up the road that shut down during the summer has been vandalised a couple of times but nothing like this.”
“She was very elegant,” she said of her friend. “She was like a model when she was dressed up.
“She walked everywhere and her health was very good. None of us can make sense of what happened,” she added.
Garda crime scene tape still fenced off a large area at the back of the terraced cottages. It is believed Rosie’s killer may have accessed the rear of her house by scrambling up the river bank.
Just a little farther up along the Shannon were signs of anti-social behaviour, with the charred remains of bonfires, broken glass and blackened cans.
At St Munchin’s Community Centre just up the road, Mary Wyse revealed how she was “born and reared” with Rosie in nearby Killeely. Then Rosie Murray, she was the second eldest of five children and her father worked for the corporation.
Their families would sit out together on the kerbstones drinking cups of tea, she said, adding: “You wouldn’t do it now.”
Rosie herself worked for many years in the front office of the ‘Limerick Leader’ newspaper.
“She was a howl,” said Mary, describing her as a good, decent person who had helped her greatly when her husband had died of cancer at 45.
She, too, paid tribute to Rosie’s love of ‘style’ with her flowing skirts and hats.
Rosie had been out with her sister, Evelyn, on the Thursday and was supposed to have been going to bingo that evening but changed her mind.
“She never worried about living on her own – she just got on with it,” she said.
Asked if she thought the assailant may have known that she normally went to bingo and took the opportunity to break in at that time, Mary said: “We just don’t know.”