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The scene outside the Regency Hotel on Friday Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie
the room exploded

'Suddenly I'm looking at a man covered in blood': Regency Hotel manager talks about horror gun attack

John Glynn lay on the floor as the gunmen dressed as gardaí stormed the building.

THE MANAGER OF the hotel at the centre of Friday’s shooting rampage has spoken about the experience.

Appearing on RTÉ’s Six One news, John Glynn described how he lay on the floor as chaos erupted around him.

“Around 1.30pm I heard this bang,” the hotelier explained to host Brian Dobson.

And I thought it was a bottle that had broken in the bar. Suddenly I saw people running left, right and centre out of the function room. I was wondering what this was all about. At that, I then noticed three men dress as gardaí coming in the front door.

As soon as he spotted that the men were armed, he dived on to the floor.

Suddenly I’m looking at a man lying besides me, covered in blood.

The three armed men went from the reception area into the bar, and then on to the weigh-in room, from where Glynn says he heard more shots.

“The good thing about this is that none of the staff were injured. None of our customers were injured, and that’s including myself sitting here tonight,” said Glynn.

As one of the gardaí said to me on Saturday evening, ‘you should buy a lottery ticket, because you’re a man with nine lives’.

Someone else who had witnessed the attack was Daithí Ó Nuanáin, who said that “the room exploded”.

He had been working at the event as a sound engineer.

Speaking on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta, he said:

I saw that people had come in with guns, and I realised that there was something very wrong. There was a young 16-year-old girl with me on work experience, so I told her to get down on the ground.

Read: CIRA made statement to set themselves up as “the protectors of the people”

Also: Gerry Adams has responded to Enda’s comments linking IRA weapons to Friday’s shooting

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