Fear remains as killer of Limerick woman Rose Hanrahan still at large

THE NEIGHBOURS of the late Rose Hanrahan still live in fear, one year after the widowed pensioner was brutally murdered in her home in Limerick.

This Friday, the Thomondgate community will hold a second prayer vigil outside Rose’s New Road home, to mark the first year anniversary of her death.

The killer remains at large as no individual has been arrested in connection with her murder.

Gardai say investigations are ongoing and family are being kept up to date on the probe’s status.

“The Thomondgate area continues to form part of proactive policing patrols and will be regularly patrolled over the Christmas period.”

Fear stalks the streets

“She was caught in that little spiral of evil that she didn’t deserve.”

This neighbour’s comment sums up the brutal end of widowed pensioner Rose Hanrahan, whose murder has left an indelible mark on a row of Thomondgate residents who continue to live in fear.

As of this Friday, it has been a continuous year of anxiety for the New Road community, who rise every morning, only to be met with the sight of peeling magnolia walls, weathered by the eerie emptiness of a home where an innocent woman was found dead on December 15, 2017.

And this Friday evening, for a second time, the community will return to Rose’s familiar maroon door to remember the tragic 78-year-old.

But the prayer service will be a numbing reminder that a cold-blooded killer remains at large, and a blunt reminder that, at sundown, the doors will remain locked and the lights will stay on.

The elderly remain shook. One woman in her late 80s, who takes a break from scrubbing her footpath, says she is even unsettled by the sound of a cat walking on her roof.

“I couldn’t sleep for weeks. I leave on a light all night. It would terrify you because you are helpless,” she says.

I ask her if she lives alone, to which she softly replies: “I do. And she did, too.”

One neighbour says that an elderly woman is so intimidated that she has “five bolts and four different locks on her door”.

And it’s not just the elderly; young women are “hysterical” at the thought of people entering their homes at night.

Nearly every Friday, one father explains, revellers and anti-social youths either host parties on the street outside his home or use New Road as a rat run to go elsewhere.

He says his daughter, who used to deliver groceries to Rose’s home, panics when she hears noise at night.

“My daughter, she hears this noise, and she is frightened in case they come in. They walk past and they bang at your window, banging at your door,” he says, adding he and his neighbours are disappointed with the level of policing in the area since Rose’s death.

“For the days ahead [of her death], you had things going on. The police were around here. It was great. The road was so quiet. You can’t see a police car. You never see a police car now.”

Another resident, who like most neighbours are not comfortable giving their names to the press, says the garda presence is “light”.

“She was our dearest friend and neighbour. She was a constant, you know what I mean?” the neighbour says, gazing at that maroon door where gardai stood sentry for a week. “She never varied. She was Rose, that was that. Even if she died of natural causes, it would have been a shock. But to die the way she did and we are living here? She was being attacked.”

His immediate reaction was to protect the family, to hold the fort.

“I lock the door. Don’t let anyone in after dark. Put your shoulder to the door when you open it. We are very vulnerable here.”

One New Road mother curtly admits her knee-jerk reaction was: “It doesn’t surprise me.”

“Not one bit,” continues the woman, who has been living in the area for more than a decade. “I have had four or five cars damaged. You’d ring for gardai on a Friday or Saturday night. We don’t have any patrols in the area. We fought for front railings because they are urinating up against the outside there. They’re kicking the door, they’re hammering on the door.”

The word on the street is that new CCTV cameras were meant to be installed in the vicinity.

However, Limerick City and County Council has told this reporter that it has “no plans to install CCTV footage” in the area.

A spokesperson said that it is “open to discussing issues of concern with residents and tenants to best improve communities in Limerick”.

“The council works closely with An Garda Siochana and local communities to make sure they are safe and don’t experience anti-social behaviour,” he states this Wednesday.

The woman continues that she and her daughter “haven’t felt safe since” Rose’s murder. Her teenage daughter, she says, is “petrified”.

“They [people] might give the door a kick. They might give the car a kick. Then if I go to open the door, she is hysterical. She goes: ‘Mam, please don’t open the door, please don’t open the door.’”

“There is no excuse for what happened to that woman, and for no one getting caught for it. There is no excuse.”

After more than 2,000 interviews and thousands of hours of CCTV footage reviewed, gardai are at a delicate stage of this high-profile murder investigation. To date, no arrest has yet been made in connection with Rose Hanrahan’s killing.

A garda spokesperson says that gardai “continue to investigate the murder of Rose Hanrahan that occurred at her home on New Road, Thomandgate, Limerick on 15th December, 2017. All avenues of enquiry are being followed and the family of Ms Hanrahan are being kept up to date on the status of the investigation.”

This concerned mother comments on the progress of Regeneration areas such as Moyross which—alongside St Mary’s Park, Ballinacurra-Weston and Southill—has benefited from Government investment of more than €320m since 2007.

But despite being a short walk from Watch House Cross and right across from St Mary’s Park via the river, New Road is on the fringe of designated Regeneration areas. And so she feels New Road and the wider Thomondgate area have been left out.

And just months after Rose’s murder, Kileely man Patrick ‘Pa’ O’Connor, 24, was stabbed to death in Fitzgerald’s Bar on Sexton Street North in July. Three weeks later, there was another serious, non-fatal stabbing in a nearby pub.

On this note, the concerned mother tells me: “When I took this house, I said: ‘Oh my God, lovely, I’m going to Thomondgate.’ Do you think if they offered me somewhere else that I wouldn’t grab it with both hands and run out of here? I would. I would just close the front door and go.”

This woman and many other New Road residents first found out about Rose’s death when they got a knock on the door from neighbour Pat Murphy. He says the memory of that dreadful morning is still fresh.

“I was just talking about it yesterday [Tuesday]. The fact that there has been no closure on it, nobody has been caught. We are only going by what we read on the paper,” he says.

“For a long time, we tried to get things done on the New Road, to make it a better road because of the fact that it is such a busy thoroughfare, from Clare side and into town.

“The residents have become a bit fed up and disjointed and they just want to get on with their own lives. And unfortunately with the way things happened, there was a coming together and then it kind of dies off again,” he explains.

He says the fear his neighbours felt on the week Rose was murdered has remained in the community.

Fianna Fail TD Willie O’Dea, who knew Rose Hanrahan personally, says that people remain “frightened and isolated” and is calling for more garda resources in the area.

“There is still an issue there. You see, we don’t have enough policing in the town. We’re down a huge amount since the height of the gang wars. The number of sergeants and inspectors is down as well.”

This reporter contacted the gardai, relaying the concerns of the New Road residents. A spokesperson issued a response this Wednesday afternoon, stating: “The Thomandgate area continues to form part of proactive policing patrols and will be regularly patrolled over the Christmas period.

“In conjunction with other agencies, the elder initiative is active in the area for vulnerable persons. Our community gardai are always available to meet members of the public who wish to discuss any matters of public safety.”

Chief Superintendent Gerard Roche told the Limerick Leader that there will be extra patrols across the city “because that is what we do at this time of year, to make sure that people are safe”.

Rose Hanrahan was laid to rest at Ballycannon Cemetery in Meelick, following a Funeral Mass at St Munchin’s Church on December 23, 2017.

Anyone with information in relation to the murder of Rose Hanrahan is asked to contact Mayorstone garda station on 061 456980 or Henry Street garda station at 061 212400 or any garda station, or the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111.