Father pointed gun at head of neighbour in bunting row

A FATHER who put a handgun to his neighbour’s head after she told his children to stop pulling down bunting has been jailed for two years.

James McDonagh, 26, told Dolores Doyle to stop ‘shouting at my f ***** g kids’ when she asked them if they were responsible for the damaged bunting. The court heard she had erected the bunting to support Dublin in the All-Ireland.

Earlier, she and her husband Patrick, both aged in their sixties, had twice asked McDonagh’s two children to stop coming into their garden and pulling the decoration down. Garda Garret Durnan told Fiona McGowan BL, prosecuting, that Ms Doyle didn’t accept she had been shouting at the children, yet McDonagh still became aggressive, calling her ‘a f ***** g auld one’.

Garda Durnan said McDonagh left but returned and came into the Doyles’ garden with what the couple later described as a six-inch-long black handgun. The gun was never recovered. He pointed it at Ms Doyle’s head and she got down on her hands and knees.

The gun was then pointed at Mr Doyle’s face. He pleaded for his life and that of his wife, the garda said. McDonagh backed off and ultimately left, after which the gardaí were called and he was arrested.

McDonagh, of Bath Road, Balbriggan, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to threatening to kill or cause serious harm to both Dolores and Patrick Doyle on September 20, 2015.

Judge Martin Nolan suspended the final two years of a four-year term.