The Coach reckoned that he was closer to the terror group than his partner. He once told his Garda handler that if it came to a row between himself and Gilligan then the INLA would back him. The terrorists would prove to be very helpful to the crime syndicate, especially when it came to one of their creditors – the General.
Martin Cahill had noticed how well his associates were doing in the drug trade. He began putting pressure on Traynor for a return on his investment, demanding over £500,000, which he reckoned was a fair return.
Traynor called to see Cahill every day and put him off. He assured him that, despite the gangland rumour machine, the gang was not yet in profit. But Gilligan had decided that they were not going to pay Cahill his money. Traynor disagreed and wanted to pay him something. After all, Cahill might be a major mobster in decline but he was still a potentially dangerous man. Chronic diabetes, for which he had refused treatment, had made him even more irrational and unpredictable. Since the Lacey kidnapping he had confined his criminal activities to arson attacks and tyre-slashing sprees around South Dublin. The focus of his anger was the construction of three houses at the back of one of his homes at Swan Grove. In his volatile state of mind, the General suspected that the houses would be used by the Gardaí to keep him under surveillance. As Cahill’s demands for his money became more threatening, Traynor and Gilligan knew that the only way to sort him out was with a bullet in the head – but they had to bide their time.
Their lucky break came on Saturday, 21 May 1991. A three-member hit team from the Ulster Volunteer Force attacked a Sinn Féin fund-raiser in the Widow Scallans pub on Dublin’s Pearse Street. The function, in aid of the ‘Prisoners of War Department’, was targeted by the Belfast gang after they read about it in the Sinn Féin/IRA propaganda sheet, An Phoblacht. The UVF had dramatically escalated sectarian violence in the North and had been planning a bomb attack in Dublin. At 10.50 p.m. two members of the hit team arrived at the door leading to the upstairs function room, which was packed with over 300 people. One of the terrorists carried a handgun, the other a bag containing an 18lb bomb. Thirty-five-year-old IRA man Martin Doherty from Ballymun tried to stop the two men getting in. In the scuffle that followed, Doherty was shot five times in the chest and died instantly. A second man, Paddy Burke, was injured when he was shot through a locked door leading to the function room. When they couldn’t get through the door the UVF men abandoned the bomb and made their escape. Their getaway car was later found burned out off the North Strand. Miraculously the bomb failed to explode. If it had, the blast would have been powerful enough to kill everyone inside and demolish the building.
The following day the UVF issued a statement to the BBC in Belfast claiming responsibility for the attack. In it they said they had struck at the ‘heart of the republican movement in its own backyard’. In the wake of the Widow Scallans incident there was intense speculation that a criminal gang from Dublin had assisted the hit team. The Provos soon pointed the finger of suspicion at their old adversary Martin Cahill. After the ill-fated attempt to sell the Beit paintings, the General had form with the Loyalist terrorists. At the time the bomb attempt was blamed on the Billy Wright UVF group in Portadown, whose members had been involved in the Beit deal.
However, neither Cahill nor any other Dublin criminals were involved in the attack. During research for this book it was revealed that both the RUC and the Gardaí established that a UVF group from Belfast was actually responsible. They considered the operation a success, even though the bomb had failed to explode. The fact that they’d murdered an IRA member was a bonus. The killers were, however, upset that the Billy Wright group was blamed, and made efforts to make it known that they had carried out the ‘brave’ act of war. The Belfast UVF gang was heavily involved in organized crime, including extortion, hijacking and drugs.
One of the claims made in the wake of the attack was that Cahill’s gang had supplied cars to the UVF. This is also untrue. The car used in the attack was a Northern-registered gold Triumph Acclaim. It had been purchased the day before the attack, from a car-dealer in Lurgan. In the hours preceding the incident, a number of Gardaí had spotted the UVF car, as it appeared to be driving around lost. Also of significance was the presence of a Northern-registered red Ford Fiesta. It was spotted near the Widow Scallans pub an hour before the attack. It was later discovered that the leader of the gang drove a similar car, and he had driven to Dublin to pick up the hit team.
The explosives used in the attack had been stolen from a quarry in the North of England and smuggled to the UVF through contacts in Scotland. But the most interesting information to emerge in connection with the Widow Scallans attack related to the 9mm automatic pistol used to murder Martin Doherty. Ballistics and forensic checks revealed that, over the previous six years, it had been used in three other murders, two attempted murders and one punishment shooting in Belfast. The UVF didn’t believe in disposing of their scarce firearms. In April 1995 six members of the gang, all of them from Belfast, were arrested for questioning by the RUC. There was insufficient evidence to charge any of them.
Hard evidence was the last thing that Gilligan, Traynor or the Provos needed. In the weeks that followed the Widow Scallans attack, the Provos launched an in-depth ‘investigation’ to find out who had helped their enemies. Criminals and drug-dealers were ‘invited’ to be interviewed by the IRA. In later years it would emerge that the terrorists were merely using the conspiracy as an excuse to muscle in on the various drug rackets and to extract ‘donations’ from organized crime gangs. The patriots were preparing for peace and wanted to feather their own nests. At the time their propagandists claimed that they were doing what the cops couldn’t – clearing up the crime scene. The fact that organized crime continued to thrive over the following years proved that they were lying.
Gilligan and Traynor were two people the Provos didn’t have to approach for information. The drug-dealers knew that the General had made many enemies in the underworld and were happy to volunteer their belief that Cahill had been involved. Factory John and the Coach had begun plotting the murder of their former pal but if the Provos – or the INLA – did it for them, then so much the better.
Cahill’s troubles with the INLA began in 1992, when one of his most trusted lieutenants was charged with raping and buggering his own 14-year-old daughter. Despite Cahill’s revulsion at his henchman’s crime, he was determined that the matter would not be dealt with in the courts. In the General’s warped logic the terrified teenager had committed a greater crime by ‘ratting’ to the police. Shortly after the father was charged, Cahill offered the child £20,000 and a new home – if she withdrew the statement she’d made to the police. He assured her that her father would be punished and would never go near her again. When she refused, Cahill turned up the heat.
One of Cahill’s former associates, John Bolger from Crumlin, who was close to the victim’s family, stepped in to protect her from the General. The 31-year-old father-of-three was a hard-drinking gambler and petty thief who lived in the shadow of bigger gangsters. But he was well connected. He and his wife, Jean, were good friends of John and Geraldine Gilligan. Bolger also regularly took part in various scams and robberies with the INLA and provided safe houses for their members. He socialized with Michael Kenny’s thugs and loved the respect and clout it gave him.
In the spring of 1993, Martin Cahill and the rape victim’s father had approached Bolger to discuss the problem. Bolger had taken part in numerous strokes with the two men in the past. Cahill offered Bolger £10,000 in cash, as an incentive to convince the girl to drop the case. But Bolger told Cahill and the rapist to fuck off and walked away. The General had another face-to-face meeting with Bolger, who hadn’t changed his mind. In the weeks that followed Bolger, his family and the victim were subjected to a campaign of intimidation by Cahill’s men. Slogans were daubed on the walls outside Bolger’s home and detectives placed protection on the house. In the end Michael Kenny and his INLA henchmen visited Ca
hill at his home in Cowper Downs, in Rathmines. They warned him that there would be ‘major problems’ if he didn’t stop the intimidation. Surprisingly it worked and Cahill ceased his efforts to stop the rape investigation.
Traynor had managed to stay out of the row but continued to carry stories from one side to the other. Gilligan sided with Bolger but hadn’t shared this information with Cahill. Gilligan and Traynor were also involved in a lucrative fraud with Bolger and the INLA. Shortly after Gilligan’s release from prison, he and Traynor had come into possession of a large number of stolen bank drafts. The INLA, through Bolger, had organized a system of laundering the valuable pieces of paper throughout the country. It proved to be a lucrative scam and everyone was earning from it.
Bolger and his INLA pals had another scam on the side as well. Bolger had come into possession of a key to open post boxes. The gang would simply open the boxes and steal envelopes containing cheques and bank drafts. Everyone was a winner but it all went tragically wrong for Bolger on the night of 21 July 1994. He was shot dead, following a drunken row with other INLA members over money which had gone missing. INLA boss Michael Kenny was also hit when Belfast INLA thug Ricky Tobin opened fire on their car with a semi-automatic rifle. Tobin later told detectives: ‘It was him or me – I had to do it.’ He later retracted the comment and said: ‘All I’m saying now is that I was there and I had a gun.’ Tobin was subsequently charged with Bolger’s murder but skipped bail and moved to England. His companion during the attack, Bobby Tohill, presented himself to Declan ‘Wacker’ Duffy for his punishment – being shot in both ankles. Tobin was eventually jailed for five years in the Special Criminal Court after he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of possessing a firearm for an unlawful purpose on the night of John Bolger’s murder.
That same month, the INLA found itself involved in fresh conflict with the General. In July 1994 one of Cahill’s relatives was evicted from a Dublin Corporation flat, off Charlemont Street in the south inner-city, where she had been squatting for over a year. The flat had been allocated to INLA killer Joe Magee, who intended moving in. Martin Cahill had other ideas. After issuing threats to Magee, the mob boss burned the flat to ensure no one could live in it. For the INLA it was the final straw – Kenny and his troops decided that it was time Cahill met his maker.
At the same time the General ratcheted up the pressure on his former friends. He demanded his share of the drug money. Traynor later claimed to this writer that Cahill was becoming increasingly prone to unreasonable temper-tantrums. The General’s relationship with Gilligan was becoming particularly fraught. Cahill had several meetings with Little John and Big John, and confided to one of his associates that he had thrown Gilligan out of his house.
In the middle of August 1994 a Garda surveillance team watched as Gilligan visited Cahill at the home of his sister-in-law and lover, Tina Lawless, in Rathmines. On both occasions Gilligan went to great lengths to avoid being spotted, arriving on foot after walking through side streets to avoid detection. Gilligan and Traynor were determined not to pay the General, and the greedy pair didn’t mind if it took murder to hang on to their cash. It would be a recurring theme in the story of modern Gangland.
At 3.10 p.m. on the afternoon of 18 August 1994, Cahill emerged from the home of Tina Lawless, where he spent most nights, and looked around to see if the Gardaí were watching him. Earlier a motorbike courier had parked at the end of Swan Grove and pretended to examine a street map. Cahill would probably have reckoned the biker was yet another young cop, hoping to nab the big-time Godfather – like so many other cops over the previous twenty years. The General climbed into his black car and drove onto Oxford Road. Seconds earlier the ‘courier’ had driven by the Stop sign to alert his accomplice that their target was on his way. The killer had been standing there for most of the afternoon, dressed in a fluorescent jacket with a clipboard in his hand, supposedly conducting a traffic survey.
As the crime boss slowed down at the junction, the hit man dropped the clipboard. He stepped over to the driver’s door with a .357 Magnum revolver in his hand. Before Cahill could do anything the window exploded into a thousand tiny shards, as the first shot was fired. The bullet ripped through his shoulder and head, forcing him to one side. As the car chugged slowly across Charleston Road, Ranelagh, the hit man walked alongside and fired another three shots into his victim. When the car collided with railings under a large chestnut tree, his executioner leaned inside and pumped another round into the gang boss, to make sure Cahill had finally met his maker.
The gunman appeared to be in no hurry to get away. He walked to the waiting motorbike and climbed on the back. The hit team sped off as residents out enjoying the sunshine began dialling the emergency services. Like their victim, the killers successfully covered their tracks and disappeared behind gangland’s wall of silence. In a strange way Cahill would probably have appreciated their professionalism – it would not have been a fitting end if he’d been whacked by mere amateurs.
When Gardaí arrived at the scene of the most significant murder yet in gangland history, they took blankets from an ambulance and covered the body of their former adversary. It was the ultimate irony that in death the Gardaí were the ones preventing the press photographers from getting a final picture, when, for the past twenty years, the police had been trying to unmask the bogeyman of organized crime. Now that the game was over they allowed him to die as he had lived – a faceless man.
Before the body had even grown cold, the INLA and the IRA rushed like vultures to claim the kill. Ninety minutes after the shooting the INLA contacted a Dublin radio newsroom and claimed responsibility. But then, at 7.28 p.m. the same station was contacted by the IRA, using a recognized code word, ‘Eksund’. The Provos claimed responsibility and then took the extraordinary step of attacking the INLA’s claim, describing it as mischievous and false. The same organization which had so often denied some of their worst murders, helpfully described the weapon used to shoot Cahill, to expunge any doubt about their involvement. Seventeen minutes later the INLA spokesman phoned the newsroom again, and this time denied that the organization had been involved at all. At 8.27 p.m. the Irish Times received two typed statements, purporting to be from the IRA, which again claimed responsibility for the high-profile hit. The next day the Provos contacted the same radio newsroom and this time gave details of how the murder had been carried out. Even in death, Martin Cahill had succeeded in causing confusion and farce. He would have found it all very amusing.
In the next edition of An Phoblacht the terrorists issued another statement, in which they gave the reason for their patriotic act: ‘It was Cahill’s involvement with, and assistance to, pro-British death squads which forced us to act. Cahill’s gang was involved closely with the Portadown UVF gang which, apart from countless sectarian murders in the 26-Counties, was responsible for the gun and bomb attack on the Widow Scallans pub. The IRA reserves the right to execute those who finance or otherwise assist Loyalist killer gangs.’ Then the statement issued the underworld with a not-so-subtle warning. ‘We have compiled a detailed file on the involvement of other Dublin criminals with Loyalist death squads. We call on those people to desist immediately from such activity and to come forward to us within fourteen days to clear their names.’
The murder of Martin Cahill sent shock waves through his beloved gangland. Some criminals went into hiding, fearing that they would be next in line for a Provo bullet. The IRA was clearly setting itself up for the future and remains heavily involved in organized crime rackets today. Calm returned a few weeks later, when the Provos announced the first ceasefire in the Peace Process.
Few close observers, including seasoned detectives and veteran criminals, believe that the IRA actually killed Martin Cahill. The smart money is that the INLA did it with the involvement of the Gilligan gang. Gilligan successfully ended the reign of the one criminal who posed a threat to him. Now nothing could stand in the way of his ascent to the top of the gangland pile. The
new Godfather of organized crime had allowed the publicity-hungry Provos to claim the kill – as a kind of goodwill gesture. Two years later, the diminutive thug remarked mysteriously to a journalist: ‘I know who murdered the General and it wasn’t the IRA.’ In 1997 a woman who’d witnessed the murder of Martin Cahill came forward to the police when she saw a picture of Brian Meehan in a newspaper. It was the first time his picture had appeared in public. The woman was absolutely certain that Meehan was the man she’d seen near Oxford Road, just before the hit.
In the wake of the Cahill murder, Paddy Shanahan, the General’s one-time partner-in-crime, appeared to be extremely stressed. In recent years, underworld sources have claimed that Shanahan was involved in business dealings with Gilligan. It’s been alleged that at one stage Gilligan suspected that Shanahan was secretly a police informant, and tested him by revealing the whereabouts of a hash shipment. According to the sources, the ‘drugs’ were actually sods of turf which had been packed to look like hash. When the haul was found by the Gardaí, Gilligan was convinced of the builder’s guilt.
At the time, Shanahan was still working closely with Gerry ‘the Monk’ Hutch and his mentor Matt Kelly. The Buckingham Buildings project had been a great success and the crooks invested in another venture with the ‘legitimate’ builder. In 1993, Shanahan commenced the construction of a shop and apartment complex called Drury Hall in Dublin’s Stephen Street. When the CAB was established three years later they identified Hutch and Kelly as being among the project’s secret underworld backers. They traced two Sterling bank drafts, worth £130,000, which had been withdrawn from a Belfast bank account held in the name of Hutch’s wife, Patricia Fowler. The drafts were then lodged into the accounts of a company owned by Shanahan.
Badfellas Page 34
