Badfellas

by Paul Williams

  Detectives found that with Desmond out of circulation people were more willing to talk. Over fifty people were arrested and hundreds of statements taken. Hundreds of phone records were analysed and traced and hours of surveillance work were logged. Informants were also quizzed. Investigators got so much information that they also opened files on a string of other crimes committed by Desmond, including rapes, sexual assaults, stabbings and shootings. However none of the cases went ahead, because the victims retracted their statements out of fear.

  In June 2000 Desmond was charged with the double murders and possession of firearms with intent to endanger life, and was twice refused bail. But just four days before the trial was due to commence in November 2002, at the Central Criminal Court, the State’s main witness, Rachel Stephens, pulled out. Desmond was infatuated with Stephens and had confessed to her about the murders. Stephens told Gardaí that she was too terrified to testify, even though she was in the Witness Protection Programme, saying: ‘Mark Desmond could have me killed the way he killed those young fellows.’ She did, however, agree to give evidence relating to the three outstanding firearms charges.

  On 18 November, Desmond was formally arraigned on the firearms charges before the Central Criminal Court. He replied: ‘Not guilty, stitched up by the police and State.’ He then sacked his legal team and asked for an adjournment to find a new one. This was a familiar tactic used by John Gilligan and other villains in an attempt to frustrate the legal process. But Mr Justice Paul Carney refused Desmond’s request and said it had all the ‘hallmarks of somebody who is playing ducks and drakes’ with the court. ‘You have taken it upon yourself to sack your legal team one year after being returned for trial,’ he told the accused.

  Desmond decided to defend himself when the trial began the following morning, in front of Mr Justice Liam McKechnie. It was the biggest gangland trial since John Gilligan’s conviction for drug-trafficking in 2001. There was heavy security, with armed members of the ERU guarding the courtroom to prevent Desmond escaping – or being shot. Measures were put in place to protect jurors and to prevent any attempts to intimidate them.

  Desmond never wasted an opportunity to harass and intimidate the witnesses. Both Rachel Stephens and Jonathan Desmond gave evidence about the firearms. Jonathan Desmond, who was also in the Witness Protection Programme, was flanked by two ERU officers as he was cross-examined by his cousin Mark. The sense of tension in the courtroom was palpable throughout. During the first week, Dee Dee O’Driscoll and some of his henchmen stood at the back of the court every day. The Canal Butcher even menacingly announced to the witnesses that O’Driscoll was ‘now in court overseeing the proceedings’.

  On 11 December 2002, the jury unanimously found Desmond guilty on the firearms charges. As the verdict was read out, relatives of the victims clapped and cheered. There were shouts of ‘you murderer’ and ‘I hope Darren comes back and haunts you’. Others, including the mothers of the two murdered men, openly wept. Desmond was sentenced to eight years. He taunted the relations of Murray and Carey and told them, ‘I’ll do it [his sentence] on me back.’

  The Guinea Pig served his sentence on E1 wing in Portlaoise Prison, alongside some of Ireland’s most feared criminal Godfathers. But even there he continued to be involved in violence. In October 2004, he was moved to the basement of the prison after he stabbed another inmate. Two months later his legal team appealed his conviction in the Court of Criminal Appeal. They argued that Desmond did not have access to proper legal representation because he had conducted his own defence. As a result, they contended, Desmond had introduced issues that should not have been brought to the attention of the jury, including telling the jury that he was a suspect for the double murders. In the normal course of a trial, other crimes unconnected with those being prosecuted would be excluded from the jury. The court overturned the conviction, stating that the refusal by Mr Justice Carney to grant Desmond an adjournment in November 2002 had prevented him from obtaining a fair trial, in accordance with the law, and was contrary to the principles of natural and constitutional justice. Mark Desmond was freed from prison in January 2005.

  Since his release the dangerous hoodlum has continued to be involved in organized crime and has survived at least one gun attack. The Canal Butcher also became embroiled in a number of gangland feuds and many of his associates were murdered. Based on the life expectancy of the average Godfather, Mark Desmond is a man living on borrowed time. At the time of writing Gardaí suspect him of involvement in the disappearance of James Kenny McDonagh, who was last seen alive on 27 October 2010.

  Ireland’s second double gangland murder was a shocking opening to the new millennium. But over ten years later, such mindless violence has become the norm in the underworld. While detectives were still investigating the Grand Canal murders, in Limerick the first shots were about to be fired in what would become the worst gang war in Irish criminal history.

  23. A City under Siege

  By 2000 in Limerick the cracks had begun to appear in the relationship between Eddie Ryan and the Keanes. The first sign of tension between the bloodied collaborators emerged when Ryan set up his own drug-distribution network. The situation then deteriorated as the Keanes’ former enforcer was sucked into a long-running feud between the McCarthys, his brother John’s in-laws, and the Keanes’ closest allies, the Collopy family.

  Tribal feuds were not new in Limerick. They were a constant feature of life in the working-class ghettos. Vendettas were passed down like a family heirloom from generation to generation, resulting in dozens of senseless murders. Two of the reasons that they seem to be peculiar to Limerick is a siege mentality and a predilection for extreme violence among some of the fighting clans, which, local historians have claimed, are a genetic inheritance. The bloodlines of some of the participants in the ongoing violence could be traced to members of the British Army and the notorious Black and Tans. The familial roots of others of the warring clans could also be linked to the most violent elements of the travelling community.

  The spark which lit the fuse was an apparently innocuous squabble over damage to a car owned by Pa McCarthy, John Ryan’s brother-in-law (no relation of the Pa McCarthy murdered in 1993). It would ultimately lead to a frenzy of unprecedented blood-letting and savagery that lasted for most of the decade. The violence was driven by blind, murderous hate, as two sadistic groups tried to wipe each other off the face of the earth. At the root of the blood lust was a manoeuvre to take control of the multi-million-Euro drug trade in the Mid-West region. The feuding gave a new meaning to the motto engraved on Limerick’s coat of arms – ‘AN ANCIENT CITY WELL STUDIED IN THE ART OF WAR’.

  The McCarthys blamed one of Jack Collopy’s children for the damage to the car. Recriminations eventually led to an incident in a pub when one of the McCarthys attacked and injured Jack Collopy’s wife. Later that night, John Ryan and one of his in-laws escalated the violence by assaulting Jack Collopy at his home. Ryan stabbed Collopy in the gut and beat him around the head, leaving him critically injured. Jack Collopy spent two weeks on a life-support machine and had to learn how to walk again.

  In October 1997 Pa McCarthy was shot and injured as he drove a car past the Collopys’ house in St Mary’s Park. The bullets narrowly missed three young children sitting in the back seat. McCarthy later identified three members of the Collopy family, who were charged in relation to the incident. The three men were acquitted following a trial at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court in 1999.

  At first Eddie Ryan and the Keanes had agreed to remain neutral in the row. But, as Ryan’s drug business prospered, the mood changed and the Keanes began putting pressure on him for drug money he owed them. In another incident one of the Collopy children was involved in a brawl with John Ryan’s daughter. Following that incident John and Eddie Ryan fired shots at the Collopys’ home.

  As Eddie Ryan got more involved in the feud, the Keanes formed up behind the Collopys. Rumours and gossip further fuelled the growing enmity be
tween the two sides. By the summer of 2000 the bitterness had reached boiling point, as the children from both sides also became involved. In one incident a row broke out between John Ryan’s daughter Samantha and Natalie Keane, Christy Keane’s daughter. Both fathers agreed that the only way to resolve the dispute was for an arranged fight between the two girls. Natalie Keane gave up after 30 minutes of combat. The 19-year-old had had a piece of her ear bitten off and the victory went to the Ryans.

  On 25 October there was another row, this time between John Ryan’s daughter and a niece of Christy and Kieran Keane at St Mary’s Secondary School in Corbally. The following day the girl’s mother, Anne Keane, the wife of Christy’s brother Anthony, was attacked by John Ryan’s two daughters, Samantha and Debbie. Anne Keane was kicked, beaten and slashed in the face with a Stanley blade. The girls were subsequently charged with assault but the case never got to court.

  Later that evening a number of shots were fired through the front window of John Ryan’s home at the Lee Estate – in the heart of Keane territory. He called his brother Eddie, who armed himself with a sawn-off shotgun. The brothers then went to pay a visit to Christy Keane and his nephew, Owen Treacy. As the Ryans arrived, Owen Treacy fired several shots at them, hitting the car and shattering the rear window. Eddie Ryan returned fire as they sped away.

  What had started as a relatively petty row had escalated into armed conflict. Eddie Ryan was determined to spill Keane blood. On Friday 10 November 2000, Christy Keane was waiting to collect his son from school. Eddie Ryan had decided it was the perfect ambush point and was lying in wait with a 9mm automatic pistol under his jacket. When Keane spotted Ryan walking towards him, Christy opened his window to talk to his former partner. But Ryan wasn’t in a talking mood and pointed the gun at Keane’s head. The weapon jammed as he squeezed the trigger. Ryan tried to shoot again but Keane drove off at speed down the pavement, sending children and parents scrambling out of the way.

  There was no longer any chance of reconciliation. The war that would bring Limerick to the brink of anarchy had begun.

  Later that evening Eddie Ryan fled Limerick to stay with his girlfriend in Northern Ireland. He returned the following Sunday afternoon for the funeral of his brother-in-law. It was a big mistake.

  As a mark of respect Ryan decided not to wear his bullet-proof vest to the removal ceremony in St John’s Cathedral. Afterwards he went to The Moose Bar with his son, Kieran. The feared gangster arrived just before 9 p.m. As Ryan ordered a round of drinks, Kieran Keane got a phone call, informing him that his target had been spotted in the pub.

  At precisely 9.53 p.m. Kieran Keane and 19-year-old Philip Collopy walked into The Moose Bar, armed with two handguns. Keane shouted at Eddie Ryan: ‘You bastard, come out ya bastard.’ Keane and Collopy remained standing in the doorway as they fired 14 rounds at their former friend. Two innocent women who were sitting close by were seriously injured in the hail of indiscriminate bullets. The attack was over in seconds. As the gunmen ran to a getaway car, they fired seven more shots at the front of the pub. Kieran Keane was delighted with his night’s work. He cheered in the back of the getaway car. ‘Eddie is dead, Eddie Ryan is dead; he’s gone.’

  Eddie Ryan was hit eleven times: two rounds hit him in the right shoulder, seven in the back and one each in the hip and left arm. Some of the specially designed bullets which hit him were used by the German police to shoot out car tyres. He collapsed in his seat. A customer ran over and asked where he had been hit. ‘Everywhere,’ gasped the underworld hard man. He slid from his chair onto the floor and died.

  Eddie Ryan’s son Kieran had been lucky. He was in the toilet when the shooting started. If he’d been with his father, the hit men would have killed him too – and considered it a bonus.

  The Ryan murder was described by a Garda spokesman as one of the most callous and indiscriminate gangland attacks ever in Limerick. But within a few years such outrageous incidents would be commonplace.

  Kieran Keane, Philip Collopy and Owen Treacy were arrested for questioning about the attack three weeks later. The getaway driver, Paul Coffey, admitted his role in the plot and told the police what had happened that night. But the police could only put Keane and Collopy away if Coffey agreed to be a witness for the State. The Keanes ensured that the driver kept his mouth shut and Coffey was the only gang member convicted in relation to the Ryan murder.

  The murder of Eddie Ryan sparked a major upsurge in violence. Over the next few months there were at least thirty petrol-bomb and gun attacks on John Ryan’s house alone. And for each attack there was retaliation. There was also a series of shootings and stabbings. Then the warring sides graduated to bombing campaigns. In one incident a booby-trap device was found under the car of a gangster associated with the Ryans. Gardaí suspected that the INLA had made the device for the Keanes. It was discovered when it failed to explode and fell off the car. Gardaí could see that it was only a matter of time before there were more murders. The victims had lucky escapes in many of the attacks. In one incident in May 2001, Owen Treacy’s father Philip, a baker, suffered serious burns when two petrol-bombs were thrown through the front window of his home in County Clare. Extra armed patrols were deployed to the main flash point in St Mary’s Park. At the same time Gardaí arrested and charged several people in connection with the various strikes.

  Three months later, Gardaí had a lucky break when Christy Keane got careless. He was stopped walking across a field with a coal sack on his shoulder. When searched there was hashish with a street value of €240,000 inside. In May 2002 Christy Keane was found guilty by a jury at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court and was jailed for ten years. His brother Kieran took over the reins of their drug empire and ensured that the feuding continued. But even darker forces were now lurking in the shadows.

  The McCarthy/Dundons – Murder Inc. – had patiently waited like vultures for the right time to make their move. Their plan to secure domination of the Limerick drug trade was fairly straightforward. The malevolent mob intended wiping out all their opposition. There would be no room for compromise or negotiation. They had built up their own drug-dealing operation while the feuding families were distracted, and had forged extensive contacts in Manchester and London. They also bought drugs from the Keane/Collopys and even supplied them with firearms. It was all part of a campaign that would be one of the most extraordinary double-crosses in gangland history.

  In secret the leader of the McCarthy/Dundons, Larry McCarthy Junior, had formed an alliance with Eddie Ryan’s close associate, Sean ‘Cowboy’ Hanley. Ryan had gone into business with Hanley when he first made his break from the Keanes. Through Hanley, the McCarthy/Dundons also teamed up with former publican James ‘Chaser’ O’Brien, who was a major drug-trafficker. O’Brien’s partner-in-crime was millionaire gangster Anthony Kelly from Kilrush, County Clare.

  Evidence of the new partnership was exposed in March 2002, when Gardaí arrested 16-year-old Gerard Dundon. He’d just collected €500,000 worth of drugs from a Limerick grandmother who worked for O’Brien. The follow-up investigation resulted in the seizure of large amounts of cocaine, ecstasy, cannabis and heroin. A ledger Gardaí found showed that the gang had moved drugs worth over €1 million in the previous eight months. Dundon got a suspended sentence in recognition of his tender age.

  With Christy Keane safely locked up, the McCarthy/Dundons began to flex their muscles. Around the same time that the Godfather was starting his jail sentence, members of Murder Inc. travelled to Florida and spent a week practising their marksmanship at a gun school. Then in November 2002 the Piranhas set the tone for their reign of terror – and showed that they would murder anyone who crossed them. Two of the gang’s hit men, Gary Campion and James Martin Cahill, murdered night-club bouncer Brian Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald’s ‘crime’ was that he had ‘the cheek’ to stand up to the sadistic mobsters when he stopped their dealers selling drugs in Doc’s night-club. The bouncer made an official complaint to the Gardaí when Larry McCa
rthy Junior threatened his life. McCarthy had been charged with the offence – signing Fitzgerald’s death warrant. A month later Murder Inc. members shot dead another innocent man, used-car dealer Sean Poland. He had sold a car to one of the gangsters and the McCarthy/Dundons decided they wanted the cash back. After shooting him, they ransacked his house and walked away with €1,000.

  Despite intense heat from the police and a public outcry over the two murders, the McCarthy/Dundons were still getting ready for their offensive. They approached Kieran Keane and offered to abduct Eddie Ryan’s sons for an agreed fee of €60,000. Keane liked the idea. The feud between his gang and the Ryans had been intensifying. He knew that Eddie’s sons would not rest until they had avenged their father’s murder. Keane reckoned that the €60,000 would be money well spent. But Kieran Keane had no way of knowing that he was walking into an elaborate trap. The McCarthy/Dundons and their partners had agreed a clandestine pact with the Ryans. By getting rid of the core of the Keane/Collopy gang, Murder Inc. and their partners could become one of the biggest criminal gangs in Ireland.

  On the night of 23 January 2003, Eddie Junior and Kieran Ryan were supposedly abducted off the street and taken away in a van. Over the following six days, Limerick became a powder-keg as everyone expected the Ryans to turn up dead. Potential combatants openly wore bullet-proof vests and houses were either shot at or petrol-bombed. But while hundreds of police and troops searched for their bodies, the two thugs were hiding in Tipperary – waiting for the rest of the plan to be executed.

  On 29 January Keane and his nephew Owen Treacy went to meet Dessie Dundon at a house on the outskirts of the city. They had been convinced that the gang were holding the Ryans there for them. Kieran Keane wanted to see his enemies die, or possibly to pull the trigger himself.