GARDAÍ IN Clare have released without charge two men they had been questioning in connection with a failed grenade attack on the home of a settled Traveller family in Ennis this month.
The men, aged 26 and 30, were arrested in Ennis on Wednesday morning and detained at Shannon and Ennis Garda stations under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act.
Gardaí secured an extension to the men’s detention at a special sitting of Ennis District Court on Thursday night. They were questioned further on Friday, before being released without charge on Saturday. Gardaí are expected to prepare a file for the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The arrests were made as part of an extensive Garda investigation into an incident in Ennis on June 13th.
A live hand grenade was thrown into a home on Childers Road in the early hours of the morning while a couple in their 30s slept in the house with their six children aged between 15 months and seven years. The family had a lucky escape when the device failed to detonate.
Ten houses had to be evacuated while Army bomb disposal experts removed the “viable” device to a nearby quarry, where a controlled explosion was carried out.
It is understood the device only failed to detonate because it was old.
The incident is being treated as the most sinister development in an ongoing feud.
The dispute began last March and culminated in a serious assault on March 28th, after which drugs and petrol bombs were recovered during follow-up searches.
A number of people have already been before the courts in relation to the dispute, which Ennis District Court has been told “has its genesis in an alleged marital break-up”.