Two men hunted after six badly burned
Two men were being hunted today as police on both sides of the border intensified their investigation into a shocking arson attack which left six people with horrific burns.
As four brothers fought for their lives in a Dublin hospital, detectives tried to establish any link between their injuries and the setting alight of a couple in Northern Ireland.
Lis McClatchey, 21, and her partner, Thomas O’Hare, 33, were doused in petrol and torched at their home near the south Armagh border village of Keady.
Ms McClatchey is critically ill in hospital after fleeing the house in flames, while Mr O’Hare was pulled from the burning wreckage in agony by neighbours. His condition is serious but stable.
Police have not ruled out the involvement of self-styled vigilantes.
Their probe into the attack on Monday night took a nsew twist when it emerged that the brothers appeared an hour later at a hospital across the border in Dundalk, Co Louth.
The men, understood to be from the south Armagh area and aged between 24 and 34, were transferred to the burns unit at St James’ Hospital in Dublin for specialist treatment.
All four are in a critical condition, but not under garda protection.
Detectives believe six men were involved in the arson attack and were today trying to establish how and where the brothers were injured.
But with none of them in any condition to talk, gardaí were preparing themselves for a lengthy inquiry.
Sources close to the probe also confirmed that police believe at least two other people know exactly what happened when the gang went into Ms McClatchey and Mr O’Hare’s isolated house on Foley Road, between Keady and Markethill.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland said it was standard practice, given the intensity of the fire, for officers to check hospitals for people who had been admitted with burns.
“That is precisely what is being carried out in this case in consultation with the Gardaí,” said a spokeswoman.
Police investigating the horrific attack have ruled out a sectarian or racist motive, but said they were following a definite line of inquiry. They said some sort of paramilitary involvement was a possibility.
Unemployed Mr O’Hare had been living at the scene of the attack for some time.
He is understood to have separated from his wife, the mother of his two children aged under 12, three years ago.
His girlfriend, Miss McClatchey, is the granddaughter through marriage of the late Harold Gracey, the Orange Order leader at the centre of the Drumcree marching protest in Portadown, Co Armagh.
Detective Chief Inspector David McConville, the officer in charge of the PSNI investigation, said that burning was an unusual and vicious crime.
He said: “It has to be said that no-one has the right to act as judge and jury, if that was the motive, and certainly we would call on the public to help us identify these people.
“There are six vicious men out there who have attacked two vulnerable people in the sanctity of their own home.”
A Garda spokesman today stressed it was a PSNI-led inquiry, adding that the men being treated in Dublin had committed no crime in the Irish Republic.
