GARDA\u00cd ARE INVESTIGATING after a convicted criminal was shot and injured in Limerick City on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Thomas O\u2019Neill (37) of Lenihan Avenue, Ballinacurra Weston, sustained a gunshot wound to an upper leg.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s understood the attack happened outside a house at Hyde Avenue, close to where O\u2019Neill is living.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill, who was identified by reliable sources, was rushed from the scene in a private car which ferried him to University Hospital Limerick.<\/p>\n
He was removed from the car by paramedics and nurses on a stretcher and brought to the\u00a0Resus unit at the hospital.<\/p>\n
His injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.<\/p>\n
The gun attack occurred around 8.20pm, garda\u00ed said.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed did not identify O\u2019Neill. A garda spokesman said \u201cone male was injured\u201d in a \u201cshooting incident\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cGarda\u00ed are appealing to anyone who may have witnessed the incident, or anyone who was in the area at the time and may have dash-cam, CCTV or other footage, to come forward,\u201d said the spokesman.<\/p>\n
Anyone with information is asked to contact Roxboro Road Garda Station on 061 214 340, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any garda station.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill has a substantial criminal record, and he was one of four youths and an adult man who gang-raped a woman at Cratloe Woods, Co Clare, on 23 January 2004.<\/p>\n
They were armed with a golf club, a screwdriver, a shovel and a wheel brace, and threatened a woman and a male who had travelled to the wood.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill and his accomplices ordered the pair out of their car and struck the woman with a golf club after she refused to give one of the gang a kiss.<\/p>\n
The man was ordered into the boot of the car while O\u2019Neill and the others took turns raping the woman in the car.<\/p>\n
The gang threatened to burn the car with the man inside it. They also assaulted the man a number of times with the golf club.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill and the others pleaded guilty to rape, false imprisonment and assault causing harm, and were jailed for a total of 31 years.<\/p>\n
At his sentencing hearing, O\u2019Neill was described by Judge Paul Carney, now deceased, as the \u201cringleader\u201d and the \u201cdirector of operations\u201d of the gang rape, and was jailed for 10 years with the final 12 months suspended.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill was released from prison in December 2025, after he served part of a two-year sentence for drugs offences, which was imposed in November 2024.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill had admitted six counts under the Misuse of Drugs Act, including possession of heroin and cocaine for sale or supply, and simple possession of cocaine and heroin, at Hyde Avenue, Limerick, on dates in June 2023.<\/p>\n
His drugs sentencing hearing at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court heard that an armed garda unit observed him drug dealing while leaning into the rear of a Hyundai Tucson car, at Hyde Avenue.<\/p>\n
When the armed garda unit approached O\u2019Neill, he became aggressive in an effort to distract the officers, who had observed some of the drug deals on the rear seat of the vehicle, it was heard.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed seized the car and found 23 heroin deals and 18 deals of cocaine on the vehicle\u2019s rear seat.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed also obtained CCTV evidence showing O\u2019Neill and two others engaging in drug dealing.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed searched O\u2019Neill\u2019s home and found seven more heroin deals, drug paraphernalia, a set of keys and a registration certificate for the Hyundai Tucson.<\/p>\n
After his arrest O\u2019Neill told garda\u00ed the drugs were for his own use, and that he smoked 10 bags of heroin a day, and that the deal bags were for \u201cbird seed and seeds for flowers\u201d.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill\u2019s barrister, Liam Carroll BL, told the court at the drugs hearing that O\u2019Neill had been struggling with heroin addiction at the time.<\/p>\n
Carroll said O\u2019Neill had engaged with a drugs treatment programme in prison and was also engaging in education and cookery classes behind bars while on remand.<\/p>\n
In 2017 O\u2019Neill suffered slash wounds when he was attacked in Fedamore, Co Limerick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GARDA\u00cd ARE INVESTIGATING after a convicted criminal was shot and injured in Limerick City on Saturday night. Thomas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1115,7782,61,60,1396,44,43,617,273632],"class_list":["post-644476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-crime","tag-gardai","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-limerick","tag-limerick-city","tag-news","tag-shooting","tag-thomas-o"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644476","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=644476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}