The thugs were brandishing weapons and screaming for directions to the safe. It took Denis a minute to realize that these men were up to trouble. But, unluckily for them, they picked the wrong man to mess with.
It’s unfortunate that we often hear about people trying to take advantage of the elderly. They can fall prey to telephone banking scams, door-to-door salesmen, and unscrupulous burglars.
But Denis O’Connor wasn’t your average grandpa.
Denis was just going about his day as usual when three men wearing balaclavas stormed into Bar One bookmakers in Glanmire, County Cork.
These criminals ended up getting a lot more than they bargained for!
Posted by Paul Byrne on Monday, September 17, 2018
“At first I thought it was a joke, a gimmick, but I quickly realized it was serious,” Denis told The Irish Sun.
With a shotgun pointed directly at him, he feared for his life.
But the burglars would quickly realize that Denis was a very poor choice of target.
“The noise was incredible, they were just roaring and bashed hammers…They weren’t interested in the fivers and tenners in the till, they were shouting, ‘We want the safe, we want the safe”- Denis recounted on The Neil Prendeville Show on Cork’s RedFM 104 – 106.
The other two robbers began to threaten the bookmakers’ manager with hammers, and that’s when something inside Denis snapped.
“Tim the manager is a very nice young man and I just couldn’t just not help him. I ignored the fellow with the gun and I went behind the counter,” he said in an interview with The Neil Prendeville Show.
He was not going to let these punks get away with it. He swooped to Tim’s rescue with a battle cry.
“Y’er cowards! Y’er total cowards!” Denis bellowed.
Denis may be old, but he is very strong.
He works out at the gym four times a week. It didn’t matter that the ruffians were four times younger than him, he decided to take them on. Grappling with one of the assailants and dodging the hammer, his right hand shot out and landed a blow, square on the thug’s face.
Then, Denis picked up a chair.
That’s when the would-be robbers became truly frightened.
If they were cruising for a beating, Denis was just the man to give it to them.
Denis, who is a regular at Bar One, recounted his ordeal to the Irish Mirror: “It all happened so fast, but I think I hit one of the men and tackled him. Despite my age, I managed to get the better of him.”
The criminals ran out of Bar One bookmakers with their tails between their legs, with Denis still chasing after them!
“I just didn’t think about what I was doing. Sometimes you can just sit down and do nothing or you can stand up to people like these and that’s what I did… you can either run or stand your ground in these situations and I’m glad I stood my ground”, the great-grandfather said in another interview with The Irish Sun.
We’re sure that these brutes will think twice next time they decided to tangle with an Irish granddad!
Posted by Paul Byrne on Monday, September 17, 2018
And, luckily for us, a security camera captured every detail of Denis’ heroic actions, so we get to watch it all, ‘blow-by-blow.’
To watch these young punks get their backsides handed to them by a pensioner, watch the entire video below.
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