Gun victim Sinead Connolly has hit out at the men who left her paralysed declaring: “They are scumbags.”
The mum of one was shot three times at her home in Bluebell, South Dublin, as her seven-year-old daughter Leah looked on in horror on March 6, 2020. But despite being wheelchair bound after one of the bullets hit her spine, Sinead, 34, has vowed not to let those involved win and plans to train as a counsellor.
Sinead said despite dying twice on the operating table and being left with life-changing injuries she will not let those behind the brutal attack get the better of her. Speaking for the first time about the shooting to Irish Sunday Mirror, Sinead said: “They took my independence and my time with my child away.
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“I used to walk everywhere and do all the things a mother does for her child and I can’t do any of that now. I have missed out on making special memories with her.
“They are scumbags as far as I’m concerned. I’m so angry with them. They could have killed me, my friends and my child. I was holding on to life by a thread.
“My life has been a living hell since this all happened and I’m going to be in a wheelchair now for the rest of my life but I’m not going to let them win.
“I’m not a victim as far as I’m concerned, I’m a survivor and I will go on and have a life with my little girl.” Sinead, who is currently in St James’s Hospital while she awaits the completion of her newly-adapted home, said she was told she will have to wait up to three years to have two procedures which will give her back her independence.
She said having a Baclofen Pump fitted, which would stop her body from going into spasm and a Mitrofanoff tube fitted which would allow her to go to the toilet on her own, would give her a new lease of life.
Sinead added: “My body is spasming all the time and I am not able to go to the toilet unaccompanied. I’m appealing to the Minister for Health to intervene and help me get the procedures I need. Having to have someone help me go to the toilet is so degrading. I will be able to live a new normal type of life once these are done.”
Sinead, who spent 15 days in a coma, said she would like to meet with Justice Minister Helen McEntee to discuss her case and offer some advice on how to help future victims of violent crime. The young mother said she also wants to train to be a counsellor so she can help other women who have been victims of violence.
She said: “I want to train to be a counsellor and go back and work at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire.
“I know first-hand what they are going through and I will hopefully be able to give them some advice and hope. That will be my goal.” Doctors told Sinead’s family there was a high probability she wouldn’t pull through due to her serious injuries.
She added: “The doctors have said they have never come across anyone with my injuries who has come so far. After I was shot I wasn’t able to eat, speak or drink. My family was told I only had an eight per cent chance of survival.
“I got shot in the shoulder, through my arm which went through and hit my lung and through my chest which then ricocheted against all my ribs breaking them before hitting my spine.” And recalling the attack for the first time, Sinead said her main concern was the safety of her little girl Leah.
She said: “I just heard a bang which must have been the door being pushed in and then Dean shot me when I stood up. I remember saying, ‘What the f**k’ and that’s when he shot me.
“I was just thinking about Leah and my four friends, I was hoping nobody would open the door into the room they were in because if they did I believe Dean would have shot them too.
“They were sitting on the floor holding the door closed with their backs. Leah said he tried to open the door and she heard a noise which I now believe was the gun maybe jamming.
“I just kept looking at that door before I lost consciousness. I was fighting to stay awake because I wanted to make sure Leah was safe. I didn’t care if he shot me six times as long as he didn’t go near that door. I tried to reach for the TV remote to throw at Dean and all the power started going in my arm and then I struggled to breath.
“In the space of literally 30 seconds my whole body started to shut down.
“I’m so glad my friends were there at the time because they helped protect Leah and then stopped the bleeding on my chest and gave me CPR which probably saved my life.”
And speaking of Dean McCarthy, who pleaded guilty to attempted murder, Sinead said he had threatened to kill her before the shooting a handful of times. She added: “I would be after cleaning the windows and he would spit phlegm at them. He would look in the window too.
“A few weeks before he shot me, Dean also told me I would end up in a body bag. He said he was going to burn me out of the apartment as well.
“Another day he smacked shopping bags across the back of my legs when I was there with Leah and he was foaming at the mouth and screaming, ‘I’m going to kill you, you f**king tramp’.”
Dean McCarthy, of Bluebell, was jailed for 15 years in March 2022 after he pleaded guilty to attempted murder. In May, Joseph Byrne, of La Touche Road, Bluebell, admitted possession of a semi-automatic handgun with intent to endanger life and was jailed for nine-and-a-half years.
In December Paul Mooney, of Ring Street, Inchicore, was jailed for five years for disposing of the firearm used in the gun attack. Brave Sinead concluded: “I don’t think any of them got adequate sentences for what they have done to me. I have to live like this for the rest of my life.
“They changed the way I will have to live my life but they will not take my future.”
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