*Killaloe.
ATTEMPTED burglaries are becoming more common in East Clare in recent months.
By Adam Maloney
Killaloe based Matthew Moroney has created a Facebook page ‘East Clare Community Alert’ in order for everyone to update the pubic and population of the region of any suspicious activity happening in the parishes of East Clare.
This has been a success for the Broadford farmer and the rest of the East Clare community as the page has grown rapidly within the past weeks, but the attempted robbery attempts for cars has not slowed in any way.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Matthew explained, “people are breaking into houses, and they’re getting the keys of people’s cars. It’s quite alarming because people have been actually in the house while its being robbed so the process of it, some cars I believe are found, more weren’t”.
Efforts of the Facebook page have had successful outcomes. “Recently the influencer Niamh de Brún in Limerick, her Range Rover was stolen while she was in the house, she recovered that through the ‘East Clare Community Alert’ page. It was found in O’Briensbridge”.
He continued, “There has been cars in Killaloe, there has been cars in Broadford. There has been cars broken into literally all areas, you don’t have to define it down to any particular parish. Like there was a shop in Sixmilebridge broken into, there was a shop in Killaloe-Ballina broken into you know so it’s quite a variety”.
Working in the Bridgetown Co-op, Moroney stated that he started to realise the effect these burglaries had on the locals, and therefore created ‘East Clare Community Alert’. He said, “I noticed that it was actually getting worse in the last few months and that’s why I set up the community alert page. I didn’t think it was going to take off as much as it did and one of the posts there last week reached over thirteen thousand people”.
“I suppose when I started working here in Bridgetown Creamery. I got to know a lot of the elderly folk and I suppose the people living alone a lot, and to have been listening to that, their queries about you know things happening, I suppose maybe in rural areas, the lack of policing hasn’t been seen as much since a lot of the local garda stations closed down, So, you know people are worried, and especially coming up to Christmas. So, people are extra worried, and I suppose all I’m trying to do is raise awareness and if anyone sees anything suspicious, whether they think it’s harmless or not to report it to the page”.
The victims of these burglaries “like the homeowners and the car owners would have informed Gardaí”, Moroney stated. “When you break into someone’s house, you’re breaking into someone’s privacy and you know their personal belongings, we all have them in cars. So, it’s quite alarming to be honest”.
“Don’t leave anything visible in their cars, try and keep their car keys on them at all times instead of leaving them you know on the table or in the hallway when they go in. Don’t keep any cash in the house, I know there has been one or two instances where cash has been taking out of the house as well, especially more elderly people, and I suppose the use of CCTV, to put a up camera or something it would be great, and just everyone to look out for their elderly neighbours. And the page, it caught on quicker than I thought it would to be honest, I know other pages were started but they didn’t take off, but this one did, and has taken off fairly well so, and we’ll try and keep it that way”.
