Killarney Gardaí try to end ‘feud’ between families

A FEUD between two Kerry Traveller families is threatening to spill over into violence as Gardaí work to resolve the ongoing dispute.

At Friday’s meeting of the Kerry County Council Joint Policing Committee, Killarney Independent Councillor Donal Grady raised serious concerns about the developing feud.

Cllr Grady told the meeting that he had thought long and hard about raising the matter at the meeting but that he felt it was important that the issue wasn’t ‘swept under the carpet”.

Cllr Grady said that the feud involved two Traveller families – one from north Kerry and one from Killarney – and that tensions had been rising in recent weeks.

“I thought long and hard before raising this matter here but I felt that waiting another two weeks might be too long,” he said.

“I fear that if something isn’t done soon then something very serious could happen. We can’t leave it any longer, it is highly dangerous,” Cllr Grady told the meeting.

Killarney Garda Superintendent Flor Murphy said that the dispute was not a serious as some people may have suggested, saying that he “wouldn’t describe it as a feud”.

However, he did acknowledge that ‘ tensions’ had been rising between some individuals in an estate in recent times and said that he had personally taken steps to resolve the dispute.

Supt Murphy said that the dispute between the families appeared to have its roots in a row between or involving children that had broken out at a ‘post Communion event’.

The dispute has led to several incidents of violence. These included an attack on teenagers in a housing estate by a number of men wielding baseball bats.

In a further incident, a large group of Travellers from north Kerry arrived at the Killarney home one family and made a number of threats.

A number of squad cars attended the scene, separated the groups and restored order.

Supt Murphy said he had personally visited the estate two weeks ago and had spoken to representatives of one side in the conflict.

Last Thursday Supt Murphy said he had met with a representative of the Travelling community who had provided him with assurances, from both sides, that the dispute would be resolved peacefully.

Supt Muprhy said these assurances had come from “people of influence in the community” and that he was “hopeful” peace will be maintained and that people involved will “see sense”.

He also thanked the Kerry Traveller movement for their help in trying to ease tensions.

Supt Murphy said that, typically, the Gardaí’s role should be the enforcement of law rather than conflict resolution but that in this case he felt it was important to intervene and see what could be done to help end the dispute.