Shoppers flee in terror as rival gangs run riot

TERRIFIED shoppers ran for cover as 100 gang rivals clashed during a street fight in Donabate arranged on social media.
The youths, from Blanchardstown and Balbriggan, arrived by train and bus and converged on the car park beside the train station shortly before 4pm on Saturday.
A number of individual brawls broke out and were filmed on mobile phones before gardai from Swords and Coolock arrived. Two teens were arrested for public order offences. No weapons were recovered.
Cllr Adrian Henchy (FF), who lives in Donabate, told The Gazette: “This is the second incident of its type here.
“A few weeks ago, a pre-arranged fight started outside the school but staff were quick to intervene and disperse it.
“In this latest one, there were rumours of knives. Gardai didn’t actually search everyone, and those they did search had no weapons. But it was scary nonetheless.
“This was the middle of the day and there were people out shopping in and around the village.
“The gardai arrived fairly quickly and in significant numbers. It could have been a lot worse,” said Cllr Henchy.
A staff member at Keelings pub said: “I was here at the time but thankfully the fight did not get a chance to spill out of the car park. Gardai were all over it, in fairness.”
Most of the thugs – which included a handful of local teens – were filming themselves on their mobile phones and footage of the incident was later shown on Snapchat and Facebook.
Cllr Henchy warned: “The worrying thing locally is that Donabate might be seen as a potential soft target because there’s no garda station.”
Five patrol cars attended the scene, and a file is now being prepared for the DPP.
A gang of teens from Ongar in Blanchardstown were involved in Saturday’s clash. The same gang clashed with youths from Tallaght during a St Stephen’s Day incident on Mary St in the city centre that involved up to 250 youths.