JOURNALIST DONAL MACINTYRE has revealed how he and his crew were threatened and had an expensive camera destroyed when they tried to film in Dublin’s Sheriff Street area recently.
The presenter is fronting a series of documentaries examining crime and related social issues in various Irish urban areas. The first episode, broadcast on Monday of this week, focused on Limerick, while Cork will also feature in a future ‘Breaking Crime’ installment.
The attack happened on what was “a sleepy Bank Holiday morning” at around 11am, McIntyre told TheJournal.ie.
“I’ve been shot at so in the context of serious crime it’s not a big issue,” he said.
He added that while he’s never had to seek police protection filming anywhere else in the world “after we were attacked in Sheriff Street we couldn’t really film down there without contacting the local Gardaí”.
The crew were verbally abused and threatened by a group aged from their teens to mid-20s. The camera was badly damaged after the angry mob poured cans of soft drink over it.
“You’d have thought a lot of the serious criminals would have been in bed even at that stage,” MacIntyre said.
Out they came. We were abused. We were threatened and our camera was destroyed.
MacIntyre and his crew observed open drug dealing during their time in the area — which saw a bloody feud break out eight years ago, and a series of fatal shootings.
Community workers, reformed criminals and senior police officers are all interviewed as part of the Sheriff Street documentary, which airs next Monday at 9pm.
“To my mind, to see open drug dealing there is an offence to the Irish taxpayer. It’s an offence to anyone who’s put money in on those streets.”
It shouldn’t happen, it should’ve been stopped a decade ago, it should’ve been stopped five years ago, it should’ve been stopped five weeks ago, and today, raid after raid, it’s still going on and it’s unacceptable.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say