“You’re a dead man walking Tom Tom”

Date Published: 18-Dec-2007

THERE WERE more angry scenes at Galway Circuit Criminal Court when a Ballybane man was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for charges connected to the discovery of a man’s body in a stolen burnt out car last year.

Immediately after Judge Raymond Groarke imposed terms of imprisonment totalling eight years and six months on Thomas ‘Tom Tom’ McDonagh (27), of 35 Lios na Run, Ballybane, members of the late Joseph Sweeney’s family from Bohermore stormed out of the courtroom shouting, “You’re a dead man walking Tom Tom. You are the walking dead. We’ll get you.”

Extra Gardaí had been drafted in to Galway Courthouse on Thursday for the sentencing hearing as it was expected that clashes between members of the McDonagh and Sweeney families would occur as had happened during two previous court hearings.

McDonagh was given an armed escort to court on Thursday morning from Castlerea Prison while several more Gardaí were on duty outside the courthouse as he was led inside.

Security measures were…..