AN ARSON ATTACK on a house in Longford yesterday has left an 11-year-old Dublin girl in Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children with serious burns.

The child’s grandaunt has told the Irish Independent how she tried to save little girl by dousing her in milk after a gang threw petrol bombs into the house.

Ann Joyce, whose house was attacked, recalled the incident when speaking to The Irish Times.

The front door was broke in on top of us. I roared at them to go away, there’s no one here but me and small children. After that they came back in and threw a petrol bomb in on top of us.

My daughter had seen them in the garden before that and she begged them not do it. She shouted down from the building that there was a child upstairs and that’s when they done it. They knew the children were there, we told them that.

Her sister, Julie Ward, had brought the child with her on a visit from Dublin. Ward says that the child got the “whole force” of a petrol bomb thrown at her.

My granddaughter was standing in the middle of the floor and a fella shouted in, ‘we got ye now’. He just threw in a petrol bomb and she got the whole force of it. My grandchild is lying in Crumlin hospital critically ill over all this. She’s badly burnt, her arms, her chest, her face, everything. I never seen anything like it in my life. That child was in flames and I tried to quench her. All I could get was a drum of milk to throw on top of her.

The attack is believed to be connected to an ongoing feud between two families, and gardaí have arrested three men in Longford Town.

The little girl is in a stable condition.