As a victim of an aggravated armed robbery, I am conflicted about documentaries, whatever about movies and TV dramas, focused on the careers of gangsters. I wouldn’t agree that crime is glamorised, but I’m at odds with how some real-life criminals are portrayed.

In 1986, my parents, my brothers, my sister, her best friend and I were held hostage overnight in our home by armed and masked men. I was a month shy of 13. The youngest, Siobhan, was aged five. I wrote about it here in detail before. My dad was manager of The Harp Bar on O’Connell Bridge in Dublin.

Tiger kidnap

A gang broke in to our home. We think their aim was a so-called tiger kidnap. But they beat dad so badly, as he defended himself and my mother, when they burst into their bedroom after midnight, he was in no condition to then be taken away.

I remember the guy with a balaclava and a gun sent in to keep watch over my two younger brothers and I.

Meanwhile, the other four robbers were in my parents’ room next door, interrogating my Dad as my mother cried in fear. It went on for hours before we were all marched one by one at gunpoint into the spare room – all seven of us, Dad bloodied and bleeding – to be tied up and gagged. The gang went off with keys and codes to rob The Harp. Dad had been beaten badly. Broken nose, broken toes and head split open.

I don’t think any movie, TV drama or documentary sets out to glamorise crime or so-called crime lords

We got free and raised the alarm. Five children aged 12 down to five and two adults terrorised. Almost 33 years ago. I mention this once again because there is a TV series I’ve come across called Ireland’s Greatest Robberies. It featured Martin Cahill, “The General”. And there was a movie based on him also.

He was in our house that night with a gun and balaclava. There was nothing “great” in what he did to us. Why is Martin Cahill still the focus of TV documentaries? And why use the word “greatest” when featuring the lowest of the low in society?

I don’t think any movie, TV drama or documentary sets out to glamorise crime or so-called crime lords. But it is an inevitable subsequence as these characters tend to be larger than life simply due to their psychotic nature.

I lived right next door to the house dramatised as Nidge’s home in the RTÉ drama Love/Hate. In fact, I have a photo with Tom Vaughan Lawlor, aka Nidge, posing outside my house after one evening’s filming. I obviously fell into the trap by asking for a photo allowing myself to be overcome with all the hype the show generated over my distain for the character he was portraying.

There was a debate at the time as to how Love/Hate glamorised the gangland world and made Nidge out to be a bit of a hero.

Yes it was addictive viewing and well written, but Nidge’s character did nothing but send shivers up my spine. I’d like to think that was the general consensus even though it was only a TV drama.

However, it was a drama closely based on the world in which Martin Cahill lived. He did nothing but bring terror to people. He lived by the sword and died by it.

There is nothing to lionise about that man. So why in 2018 is there anything to be gained dramatically chronicling his shameful life, regardless of his ingenuity or complexities?

Black Friday: are we saving?

Would it be fair to describe the wheeze that is Black Friday as basically hypnotising people into spending money while at the time convincing them that they are actually saving?