Fear of raids forces shopowner to quit

The owner of a family-run shop, robbed by a drug addict armed with a meat cleaver, has said that he has lived in fear since the attack and has now ceased trading. Last week, Peter Nolan (29) from Celbridge, Co Kildare, was jailed for three years after robbing shops at knifepoint in Summerhill and Baconstown while on heroin in April of this year. At Trim Circuit Court on Friday, the owner of the Dargan's Gala in Baconstown, Matthew Dargan, told the court of the effect of the robbery: "As a result of that robbery and a number of others over the years, I have decided to cease trading from this weekend. Every customer that comes in, I'm nervous and watching. I've decided I can no longer do it. I am just waiting for another robbery." Speaking after Nolan's conviction, Mr Dargan said he had been burgled a few times already before the April 2010 robbery, but that now he had stepped aside from the family business of almost 60 years and three generations. "We've had the shop since 1953," he said. "My grandfather, Matt, started the shop, which has been at Baconstown Cross since the 1960s. "Then my father, Eamon, ran it up until his sudden death nine years ago this month. He himself was viciously robbed once, and struck in the head. "We've been burgled a few times and this, being held up, is one of a few things which means I'm stepping aside from the business. I am looking at the bigger picture but you're living in total fear when you're thinking about it every time someone's going to walk in. It's also down to the slowdown but I'm going to leave it and get another job. But it was a vicious robbery and he took a lot of money," said Mr Dargan. "The shop will still have the name on it and still be open - new proprietors were secured last week. It's ironic that the case came up last week, too, because this was hanging over things all year," he added. "I've always been in the shop right from a toddler," said the 39-year-old. "I was born and reared in and around the shop and always involved with it before I took it over in 2002. "Living in fear, night and day, the cost of installing security cameras and most of the time on your own in the shop among other things, I just got tired of it." Mr Dargan, who lives in the house beside the shop with his brother, says that he will continue to be active in the community as a member of the first responder team in Baconstown, among other groups, and said that he and his uncle, Vincent Dargan, will continue with the funeral business that was first started in the 1970s. "I'd just like to say thanks to the people, to the community, over the years they have been very kind to us and were in my father's time, and I hope they continue to support the shop as it's a focal point, a meeting point, for the community," Mr Dargan added.