Three men have been hailed as heroes after they jumped on a man who had just robbed a post office in Co Kilkenny, according to the Irish Examiner.

The lone raider went into the post office at 12.30pm yesterday with what appeared to be a gun and demanded money. The woman behind the counter was forced to hand over a bag of cash containing an estimated €5,000.

Local man Billy Walsh was in the post office at the time.

“I couldn’t see anything suspicious but the man was at the hatch and all he kept saying to the woman inside was ‘thank you, thank you’ and then he left,” said Billy last night.

“Next thing he left and I looked at her face and she was in terror and said ‘yes I’ve been robbed’.

“So I ran straight away out the door and roared at your man and he was walking calmly down the street but as soon as I roared at him he made a run for it.”

Billy’s son Liam was in a van across the road with another local man, Fergal Tynan.

Liam said: “My dad just came out and shouted ‘he’s robbed the post office, get him’ so I saw him running and I tore off after him in the van and he tripped. We jumped out of the van and we caught him.”

Billy added: “By the time he got a chance to get up after tripping we were down over him. So we just held him up and told him he wasn’t going anywhere, put him up against the door and kept him there until the guards arrived.

“I didn’t see a gun at that stage but just the natural instinct was just to go and try and help.”

The man didn’t struggle and kept saying ‘I’m sorry’. When Billy went back up to the post office the woman behind the counter told him there was a gun left there.

Gardaí believe the gun is an imitation. The man they arrested afterwards is in his 20s and being held at Thomastown Garda station.

All the money has been returned and gardaí have praised the work of the three local men.

This article first appeared in today’s Irish Examiner.