Eugene O’Sullivan survived coming face to face with an IRA gang in an infamous shootout in Leitrim in 1983, which claimed the lives of Garda Gary Sheehan and Army Private Patrick Kelly
This is the moment a former Garda revisited the spot where he escaped death by less than an inch in a notorious shoot-out – for the first time in 41 years.
READ MORE: Killer of father and daughter handed himself into Gardaí 10 years after fatal fire as he "couldn't live with the guilt" Mr O’Sullivan was in the then Garda Special Task Force, the forerunner of the Emergency Response Unit, when the IRA gang that had just killed the trainee Garda and soldier approached the roadblock he was manning – and opened fire. He had to dive for cover as an IRA man shot at them – and one of the bullets missed him by less than an inch.
Mr O’Sullivan also spoke of his emotion at revisiting the scene for the first time since the tragedy that shocked the nation. He said: “It’s very nostalgic, it brings it all back really. I always wanted to come back and see the location where it happened.” Mr O’Sullivan was speaking minutes after Garda Commissioner Drew Harris formally unveiled the monument to the two men outside Ballinamore Garda Station. Mr Harris told hundreds of guests at the ceremony: “They paid an eternal price, and so it is right and just that their memories are eternally recognised here in Ballinamore.”
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