Warning - long boring post incoming - stop reading now if you can only handle bullet points.
So a few weeks back on the night of the euros I was sitting on my couch about 12.30 at night, nursing the end of a beer, and watching the end of a movie (Bourne)… when I hear footsteps getting louder and then someone absolutely rattled the fuck out of my windows with five big loud thumps. I nearly hit the fucking roof with the shock of it as you can imagine sitting there in your own gaff in the dark and half asleep then thump, thump, thump. I ran out my front door without thinking and could make out a figure running behind the tree line across from the house, so I just made a beeline in that direction in my bare feet, and I’m still Clutching the bottle beer I was drinking - and I find a character behind a gable end house wall, about 300 yards from my house, and he’s on the ground laughing… I just ran up and give him a boot in the hole and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck I just threw a couple of fucks at him and told him stay away from the house – he was about 16.
as I was coming back towards my house I saw movement down the other end of the road so I knew his friends had scattered the other direction behind the tree line, So I creep up on the friends, three of them, and just had a quiet word telling them you can’t be banging on the house as my mrs is almost eight months pregnant and there’s a couple of young kids in the house… I said just tell your friend I only wanted to scare him off yada yada yada… 20 minutes later then didnt the missus say ‘I think there’s people outside again’ and sure enough I could hear voices and I was just about to go out the door when a squad car flew passed… turns out they’d been knocking on loads of other doors around the neighborhood and it’s actually something that’s been going on for ages - there’s a neighborhood Watch whatsapp group that I’m not in, but there’s constantly people saying that their house was egged or stuff was thrown at their front door or front door was booted - so these are the prime Suspects. So they flew off from the guards but one guy was wearing those slider flip-flop things and they came off his feet when running so I picked them up and I left them across the road on the grass across from my house and I worked from home at the front of the house the next day looking out the window waiting to see if they’d come back. Sure enough, at half one they came back, bauld as brass, so I ran out and asked ‘can we talk’ but straight away it was attitude ‘no’… and so I went up to them all the same, and said sorry for giving your man a kick, but that he frightened the life out of me at that hour of the night and that there’s young kids in the house and there’s a pregnant wife - you can’t be banging on people’s property that hour of the night … but it was all attitude- apparently I beat the shit out of him was the story that he told his friends - you can’t go beating young fellas up(I’ll remind everyone I was barefoot and holding a beer in one hand when I caught him) anyways - all attitude and took no accountability so I knew there and then they were gonna come back.
They let it go for two weeks and let the dust die down but last Sunday night they decided to rock up around 11.30pm and fired five or six eggs at the windows with the mrs in bed getting the worst of it- in my bare feet again I didn’t hesitate and took off but I only got so far and I knew I wasn’t going to catch the shits so I ran back and got on a footwear hopped into the car and I drove around to the back of the estate to where I had an idea that they were heading, but they got there just before. There’s a gap in the tree line at the back of the estate down into a big ditch that you can go through to get to another Estate but it takes a good three or four minutes to drive around to this other estate … they had gotten in to the tee line and into the ditch before me but I stood there listening for a minute and I could hear them talk and one of them called out to David and they were fairly shitting it the little pricks - but I was stood there and listened for a bit as I wasn’t jumping in there in the dark, I’d break my neck. I ran back to the car and drove around to the other estate - I had a Hurley with me and when I got the other side sure enough I could see them all sitting there on a curb on their phones … So I pulled up and into the first house nearest them, pretending I was living there and they ignored me. opened the door got the Hurley out and ran at them and I just missed one guy and they Scattered and I let out a few shouts of ‘stay the fuck away from my house’ and ‘David, I have your name, and the guards have your name’ blah blah blah. I had no idea who was David.
I go back home and meet the guards, my wife had rang them …. I told them they better find the shits or im going to hurt them badly and I’ll gladly take a charge but in fairness, they were sound out and calmed me down and I dropped the hurley.
I’m kind of on a high this stage so I wasn’t ready for bed but about half one I was just about to lock up when the door is booted again - at half one in the morning knowing that there’s kids and a pregnant woman in there ffs… so I come out and the cars destroyed, they covered it in shite and they poured stuff in a little crack in one of the windows on to one of the child seats in the back- the Mrs rang the guards again and they come out but I’m quite zen at this stage …
I didn’t sleep for half of that night but next day it’s the little ones birthday, I went off to get balloons about 11 o’clock and coming back to the house and I see a couple of figures walking along the other side of the tree line as I’m driving the car down towards the house… and I’m thinking they surely aren’t stupid enough to come back - so I walked down my road as there’s a gap halfway down in the tree line and they’re behind the trees on the other side walking the same direction and sure enough they walk out the gap in the trees and it’s the little bold bastards, they turn and fled… I’d say they wanted to see their handy work from the night before but I had the windows scrubbed at 9am and the car brought to the car wash… I drive and I almost catch them escaping into the other estate again and they can hear me so I shout that there’s a pregnant wife and young kids in the house, to let it go blah blah blah.
The wife had messaged the community WhatsApp group again and 3 other cars of people who have had their door or property damaged tuned up and we all drove around to the other estate and one of the drivers nearly got them, they were hiding under a three, but they made a beeline into the bushes and they got away.
I decided to take another angle and I start jumping online and I start Googling every local sports club underage team and every local secondary school and secondary school in Cork and their sports teams …and looking at every photo I can to find to see if I can find these guys, particularly the ring leader… No joy after two-days, couldn’t find anything, but then I decided to check on the local primary school here from a few years back …in no time I find a picture that looks like him from about five years ago aged 10/11…so anyway I get to work, ask a few people, and find out a name, get a modern picture and it turns out it is actually him - I get a name, address, school and father’s name… I’m just working on getting the mates now( I have one partially identified) and I’m just going to build a dossier on them all before acting. I first thought about spreading malicious lies about them and signing them up to some sordid gay sex sites and getting materials sent to their house to compound the rumours but there’s no telling what kids might do to themselves if the world starts slagging them off about something– so maybe this is a bit immature to do. I then thought about going all psycho on them and creeping up on them outside their house and whisper something like ‘ Now i know where you live, I’m going to rape your mother’ and walk away – but that too is probably a little OTT. Instead I think I’ll just let them know I know everything about them and that there’s gonna be a new baby in the house soon so fuck off and I wont take any action… but leave a lingering threat about the guards if they don’t.
It’s probably the best approach as I’ll very seriously injure one of them if it happens again and I’m kinda hoping for this if I’m being honest but it’s not fair on the wife to bring more trouble on. I’ve had a lot of men in the neighbourhood offer their services to help beat them 
- even as recent as an hour ago picking up the little lady from a play date. Apparently one of the local Pakistani guys who works in the local takeaway got set on by two 15 year olds a few weeks back… He’s the soundest most gentle soul you could ever meet and i was raging when i found out… he always fires in a few extras when i get grub and we have a bit of banter. What’s sickening is all these kids are from very respectful families and a number of them are well off. They wouldn’t last jig time with lads their own age from the Northside, they’d literally cry. Pure middle class privilege.
Anyway, the real question is – what would Derek advise me?
… Social media would have been great craic at 16