Garda files:1930s: 'Hooligans' hid razor blades in potatoes

Shane Hickey

POTATOES studded with razor blades were used as weapons by a marauding group of "hooligans" dubbed the 'Animal Gang' during pitched battles on the streets of Dublin in the 1930s.

The group of 100 youths, some of them 'newsboys', banded together to carry out feuds, including one with the IRA in 1934 over the distribution and sale of An Phoblacht.

Newspaper reports from the day illustrate fierce fighting between the 'Animal Gang' and groups in the Tara Street and Townsend Street areas, during which batons filled with lead, knuckle dusters and potatoes with razor blades were used.

"A new trouble has broken out in Dublin. It is giving considerable anxiety to the Garda Siochana, for it is no less than a gang warfare," said the Cork Examiner, September 21, 1934.

The 'Animal Gang' also gatecrashed dancehalls in the capital, where they hit out at people they had grudges against.

"There is no political significance attached to the formation or activities of the 'Animal Gang' -- the members of which are hooligans pure and simple," a garda report said.