{"id":299419,"date":"2026-02-15T13:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T13:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/299419\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T13:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T13:55:07","slug":"word-gets-around-in-a-small-village-limerick-man-pressured-to-store-drugs-in-his-attic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/299419\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Word gets around in a small village&#8217;: Limerick man pressured to store drugs in his attic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A \u201cHELPFUL person in the community\u201d has come before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Limerick<\/a> Circuit Court for storing over \u20ac35,000 worth of drugs in his attic.<\/p>\n<p>Garda Kieran Lynch detailed that the drugs squad received \u201csecret and sensitive information\u201d, which prompted a search of Kevin O\u2019Connell\u2019s house in Patrickswell, Limerick on February 20, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Upon entering his home with a search warrant, 52-year-old Mr O\u2019Connell directed garda\u00ed to his attic, where 1,732 grams of \u201ca green bud-like substance\u201d was uncovered. Mr O\u2019Connell told garda\u00ed that he was only \u201cminding\u201d the drugs.<\/p>\n<p>Barrister Mark Nicholas, defending, said that Mr O\u2019Connell was known to have been struggling financially, and was asked to mind the drugs on two separate occasions at a GAA pitch and a pub.<\/p>\n<p>READ MORE:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/news\/crime-and-courts\/2011749\/major-development-in-the-trial-of-limerick-man-accused-of-giving-a-detective-20k-for-information-on-cab.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Major development in the trial of Limerick man accused of giving a detective \u20ac20k for information on CAB<\/a><\/p>\n<p>According to Mr Nicholas, \u201cthe ask is designed to get under your skin\u201d, and Mr O\u2019Connell \u201cwasn\u2019t able to refuse these people\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>State barrister John O\u2019Sullivan, detailing the facts of the case, said that Mr O\u2019Connell was handed the bag of drugs from a car parked at backroads, and was paid \u20ac100 a go for holding the drugs. It was put forth that Mr O\u2019Connell did this job five times.<\/p>\n<p>Mr O\u2019Sullivan said that when Mr O\u2019Connell was interviewed by gardai, he relayed that \u201cword gets around in a small village\u201d, and that those who asked him to mind the drugs were aware of his financial situation.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Nicholas told judge Colin Daly that Mr O\u2019Connell fell behind on his mortgage payments &#8211; which amount to \u20ac1,000 a month.<\/p>\n<p>Judge Colin Daly heard that the man is employed on a part-time basis on a F\u00e1s Scheme, and was previously working as a courier for SuperValu, but was later let go.<\/p>\n<p>Mr O\u2019Connell has no previous convictions. In mitigation, Mr Nicholas said that Mr O\u2019Connell fell on considerable financial difficulty. The barrister asked the court to consider \u201cWhy someone at his age would find himself doing this?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He further added that there was no \u201cpersonal use\u201d of the drugs by Mr O&#8217;Connell.<\/p>\n<p>Judge Colin Daly adjourned the sentencing to a date in March.<\/p>\n<p>-Funded by the Court Reporting Scheme<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A \u201cHELPFUL person in the community\u201d has come before Limerick Circuit Court for storing over \u20ac35,000 worth of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,4183,61,60,1396,67397,43,13810],"class_list":{"0":"post-299419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-gaa","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-limerick","13":"tag-limerick-circuit-court","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-patrickswell"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}