(RNN) – What would you do if you were minding your own business, sitting in a shop, and three masked robbers burst in and one shoved what appeared to be a shotgun in your face?
Well, if you were an 83-year-old man in Ireland last weekend, you would stand up and fight.
The man, a grandfather named Denis O’Connor according to The Irish Sun, was caught on camera doing his part to thwart the robbery of a betting shop on Saturday outside Cork.
When the three stormed the shop, one of them pointed an apparent shotgun at the older man, who stood up from his chair while two other men ducked under a table.
When the man with the gun turned his attention on the other men, the older man went to the aid of the shop employee, who was fighting off two other attackers who had hammers.
He scared one of the hammer-wielding robbers off, and then chased the man with the shotgun out of the store as well, grabbing a chair and charging at him.
As the remaining thief began to run out, the 83-year-old charged and kicked at him as well.
The shop manager, Tim Murphy, told a local radio station that he heard O’Connor shout, “You’re cowards, you’re total cowards,” at the men.
“I just didn’t think about what I was doing,” O’Connor told The Irish Sun. “Sometimes you can just sit down and do nothing or you can stand up to people like these and that’s what I did.”
The defeated trio made an escape in a black car waiting outside, the Irish Examiner reported.
That paper also spoke to O’Connor, and he said he he thought it was a joke at first.
A local councilor, Ger Keohane, said he and the shop employee both “showed huge bravery.”
Betting shops are commonplace throughout the UK and Ireland, and are frequently the target of such robberies.
The town where this attempted robbery took place, Glanmire, is considered particularly vulnerable because there is no police station, the councilor told the Irish Examiner.
“People know it’s open country after Glanmire if they can get away with it,” he said.
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