Swines steal beloved Pete the Pig from Limerick butchers

HAM-FISTED thieves picked up Pete the Pig from outside a Limerick butchers and made off on their trotters.

The porcine-inspired hand-carved figure has stood proudly outside O'Connell's on Thomas Street in the city for some 40 years. Until now.

In a Facebook post, the award-winning butchers revealed that Pete had been stolen in Pigtown. 

"He's a hand carved pig and actually weighs about 25kgs," reads the post. The perpetrators will do well to make a silk purse out of it.

They say, "All the team here are devastated (except whoever had to lift him in every night)".

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O'Connell's staff are appealing for the public's help in getting Pete back where he belongs.

In the post on social media on Friday, they say Pete was taken in broad daylight and then taken to a waiting van.

"The lads gave chases but alas the culprit escaped," they say.

O'Connell's Butchers have offered a reward for information on the "piguliar" theft.

Being shared widely online and stories on the Live 95 and the Leader will hopefully make Pete too hot to handle for the thieves and they find themselves akin to a pig in a poke.