GARDAÍ ARE INVESTIGATING after a convicted criminal was shot and injured in Limerick City on Saturday night.

Thomas O’Neill (37) of Lenihan Avenue, Ballinacurra Weston, sustained a gunshot wound to an upper leg.

It’s understood the attack happened outside a house at Hyde Avenue, close to where O’Neill is living.

O’Neill, who was identified by reliable sources, was rushed from the scene in a private car which ferried him to University Hospital Limerick.

He was removed from the car by paramedics and nurses on a stretcher and brought to the Resus unit at the hospital.

His injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.

The gun attack occurred around 8.20pm, gardaí said.

Gardaí did not identify O’Neill. A garda spokesman said “one male was injured” in a “shooting incident”.

“Gardaí are appealing to anyone who may have witnessed the incident, or anyone who was in the area at the time and may have dash-cam, CCTV or other footage, to come forward,” said the spokesman.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Roxboro Road Garda Station on 061 214 340, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any garda station.

O’Neill has a substantial criminal record, and he was one of four youths and an adult man who gang-raped a woman at Cratloe Woods, Co Clare, on 23 January 2004.

They were armed with a golf club, a screwdriver, a shovel and a wheel brace, and threatened a woman and a male who had travelled to the wood.

O’Neill and his accomplices ordered the pair out of their car and struck the woman with a golf club after she refused to give one of the gang a kiss.

The man was ordered into the boot of the car while O’Neill and the others took turns raping the woman in the car.

The gang threatened to burn the car with the man inside it. They also assaulted the man a number of times with the golf club.

O’Neill and the others pleaded guilty to rape, false imprisonment and assault causing harm, and were jailed for a total of 31 years.

At his sentencing hearing, O’Neill was described by Judge Paul Carney, now deceased, as the “ringleader” and the “director of operations” of the gang rape, and was jailed for 10 years with the final 12 months suspended.

O’Neill was released from prison in December 2025, after he served part of a two-year sentence for drugs offences, which was imposed in November 2024.

O’Neill had admitted six counts under the Misuse of Drugs Act, including possession of heroin and cocaine for sale or supply, and simple possession of cocaine and heroin, at Hyde Avenue, Limerick, on dates in June 2023.

His drugs sentencing hearing at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court heard that an armed garda unit observed him drug dealing while leaning into the rear of a Hyundai Tucson car, at Hyde Avenue.

When the armed garda unit approached O’Neill, he became aggressive in an effort to distract the officers, who had observed some of the drug deals on the rear seat of the vehicle, it was heard.

Gardaí seized the car and found 23 heroin deals and 18 deals of cocaine on the vehicle’s rear seat.

Gardaí also obtained CCTV evidence showing O’Neill and two others engaging in drug dealing.

Gardaí searched O’Neill’s home and found seven more heroin deals, drug paraphernalia, a set of keys and a registration certificate for the Hyundai Tucson.

After his arrest O’Neill told gardaí the drugs were for his own use, and that he smoked 10 bags of heroin a day, and that the deal bags were for “bird seed and seeds for flowers”.

O’Neill’s barrister, Liam Carroll BL, told the court at the drugs hearing that O’Neill had been struggling with heroin addiction at the time.

Carroll said O’Neill had engaged with a drugs treatment programme in prison and was also engaging in education and cookery classes behind bars while on remand.

In 2017 O’Neill suffered slash wounds when he was attacked in Fedamore, Co Limerick.