{"id":372721,"date":"2026-03-30T09:05:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T09:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/372721\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T09:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T09:05:12","slug":"pepper-spray-deployed-and-punches-thrown-as-husband-and-wife-traded-blows-with-rivalling-traveller-couple-inside-midlands-service-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/372721\/","title":{"rendered":"Pepper spray deployed and punches thrown as husband and wife traded blows with rivalling Traveller couple inside midlands service station"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Bernadette and Christy McDonnell on the steps of Longford Courthouse.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/fff139d3-c342-4912-98f2-76eec2cb6f5c.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Bernadette and Christy McDonnell on the steps of Longford Courthouse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">A husband traded blows with a senior member of a rivalling Traveller family inside a busy midlands service station in full view of horrified shoppers before racing to his parked vehicle and deploying pepper spray moments after seeing his wife being \u201cgrabbed\u201d, a court has heard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Christy McDonnell (44) and his wife Bernadette (48), both of Ardnacassa Avenue, Longford, pleaded guilty to committing violent disorder at Hanlon\u2019s Gala Shop, Dublin Road, Longford on the morning of June 10 last year, a sitting of Longford District Court was told.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bernadette and Christy McDonnell on the steps of Longford Courthouse. A husband traded blows with a senior member&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,23576,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-372721","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-liam-cosgrove","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372721","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=372721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}