THE top Garda in Kerry has expressed his concerns that the current Traveller feud between two families in Tralee and Cork will escalate.
Chief Superintendent Pat O’Sullivan said any further criminal behaviour will be met with an immediate response from the gardaí and he said doesn’t want to see a return to the days when there were armed gardaí on the streets of Tralee as there was in 2009.
The Chief Supt was speaking to Jerry O’Sullivan on the ‘Kerry Today’ programme on Radio Kerry earlier this morning.
Four men and a 15 year old boy appeared in Tralee court on Wednesday charged with offences relating to an incident in Rath cemetery the previous day, in which a man received stab injuries. They were granted bail on a number of conditions including that they stay out of Kerry apart from court appearances.
However, it is understood as the men were making their way out the county they came into contact with five men in Castleisland, three of whom appeared on Thursday in Cahersiveen District Court charged with engaging in threatening, abusive and insulting language and a breach of the peace .
The three men, all from Tralee, were released on bail on condition that they don’t leave an area within five miles of Tralee, and will appear again at Tralee District Court in January.
“This type of behaviour will not be tolerated,” he said. “Our local district officer in Tralee, Jim O’Connor, had an immediate response on Tuesday and again on Wednesday while the court was ongoing. I would appeal to these Travellers not to take part in any form of criminal behaviour. If they do there will be an immediate response from the gardaí in Tralee,” he said.
“This is between the Faulkner and the McCarthy’s and goes back over 10 years where one of the Faulkners was killed in Tralee in August 2004. The feud goes back to before 2004,” Chief Supt Pat O’Sullivan told Radio Kerry.
“We have had serious incidents with a number of Travellers in Kerry down through the years. We all saw what went on in Tralee in 2009/2010 where we had 23 Travellers imprisoned. We don’t want to see armed gardaí on the streets of Tralee. They’re [the feuding Travellers] giving the town a very bad name,” he said.
The Chief Supt said the gardaí in Tralee are available at any time to facilitate a solution to the feud between the Faulkner and McCartney families, but he warned both sets of people who appeared in court to abide by the bail conditions set down by Judge James O’Connor in Tralee and Cahersiveen.
