Limerick’s scariest soccer team?

Just over three weeks ago (3/04/10), the Limerick Post published a photo in their ‘Club Corner’ sports pages, featuring a team from a memorial soccer tournament, remembering Ger Hehir and Michelle Collins - car accident victims, in May 2009, from two prominent Limerick families involved in the McCarthy-Dundon gang.

Last weekend, 8 alleged members of the McCarthy-Dundon gang were charged with various offences, including 5 featured in the team photo above.

1. Ger Dundon (25) of Hyde Road, Limerick, charged with committing violent order at Sarsfield Avenue, Garryowen, on February 17th 2010 

2. Jimmy Collins (47), of Crecora Avenue, Limerick, charged with threatening to kill or cause serious harm to Mark Heffernan on October 17th 2009 at the Milk Market, Limerick, and with demanding money with menaces on the same date. 

3. Dave McCormack (25) , Crecora Avenue, Weston, Limerick charged with committing violent order at Sarsfield Avenue, Garryowen, on February 17th 2010.

4. Christopher McCarthy (27) Crecora Avenue, Limerick, is charged with threatening to kill or cause serious harm to Mark Heffernan on October 17th 2009 at the Milk Market, Limerick, and with demanding money with menaces on the same date.

5. Gareth Collins (27), Hyde Avenue, Limerick, like his dad, Jimmy, is also charged with threatening to kill or cause serious harm to Mark Heffernan on October 17th 2009 at the Milk Market, Limerick, and with demanding money with menaces on the same date. Collins is also charged with committing violent order at Sarsfield Avenue, Garryowen, on February 17th 2010.

Michael Bridgemen (51), Christopher McCormack (brother of Dave) and Patrick Pickford were also charged.

Shoplift around!

The Galway Advertiser newspaper this week highlights the recent activities of Mary Ryan, a Limerick woman, in Galway City (‘Limerick woman caught in cheeky shop-lifting spree’). Mary Ryan, also known as Mary O’Brien or Mary Ryan O’Brien, with an address at Sharwood Estate, Newcastle West, had 108 previous convictions prior to these latest charges.  On 13th March last, she managed to shoplift some €1,700 worth of goods from two Galway premises.  Mary was arrested at 10.20 on the morning of the 13th of March last at Tescos in Galway Shopping Centre. Later that day, she was arrested again, at 1:20 after she refused to leave Hartmann’s Jewellers. Gardaí search her and found cosmetics stolen from Flanagan’s Pharmacy.

That 13th March, a Saturday, was a particularly busy one for Mary.  At 6.10 pm, Mary was arrested for the 3rd time that day, this time in Debenhams, and charged with theft of over €2,000 worth of goods and criminal damage to those items she had ripped the security tag off. Later, Mary’s solicitor informed the court that she was the mother of a 3-year old child, and that her husband had been killed in a crash in 2009 and that she was on medication.

Mary in Galway, as she moved from (A) Tescos to (B) Flanagan’s Pharmacy to

(C) Hartmann’s Jewellers and finally to (D) Debenhams.

Not illustrated: Mary’s trips to the Garda station after A, C & D

Mary Ryan’s shoplifting habit goes back a long way, at least to October 2002.  Back then, the Kerryman newspaper reported that Mary Ryan, then 19, stole clothes to the value of €229.70 from a shop on Main Street, Cahersiveen. Her solicitor explained that she had just run away from home and realised she needed some clothes.  Judge Humphrey Kelleher fined her €40.

Fast forward to 2008. On the 11th of September that year, Mary stole €1,000 of cosmetics from Rosedale Pharmacy in Dooradoyle, and two months later, a further €200 of goods from the Body Shop in the Crescent Shopping Centre in Limerick on 11th November 2008.  She also swiped a crystal carriage clock from Carrig Donn that same day. By the time these offences came to court, in May 2009, Mary was also charged with being a passenger in a stolen car in Pineview Gardens, Moyross. 

Though her solicitor, John Devane, ask for leniency for the ‘young mother of two’ who ‘had fallen on hard times’, Judge Tom O’Donnell suggested she was hiding behind her children. Judge O’Donnell also addressed her failure to turn up in court on previous occasions. Her solicitor explained that her child had medical appointments at Temple Street Children’s Hospital in Dublin on those dates.  However, after Garda inquiries, it was discovered that no such appointments existed and Temple Street hospital had no record of her or her children.

She was sentenced to 6 months imprisonment.

On January 30, 2009, Mary was questioned by Gardaí about the theft of €760 worth of cosmetics and perfumes from Dooley’s Pharmacy in Newcastle West.  According to the Kerryman newspaper, minutes after being questioned and released by Gardaí, she stole €30 of groceries from a nearby petrol station. This was happened while Mary was on temporary release from prison after being sentenced to 4 months imprisonment at Kilmallock District Court, on 18 December 2008, for theft. Judge Mary O’Halloran, at Listowel District Court, was told by the defence solicitor that Mary Ryan O’Brien was under the influence of drugs at the time and she had already sold on all of the stolen goods. She was sentenced to 5 months imprisonment.  The judge suggested that prison governors offering her early release ‘doesn’t help the court in the carrying out of justice.’

In November 2009, Mary Ryan O’Brien was back in court – this time in Limerick District Court - charged with stealing €462 worth of goods from Keating’s Pharmacy Dooradoyle in April 2009 after she was identified on CCTV by Gardaí.  Defending O’Brien, solicitor Sarah Ryan remarked that her client was not in receipt of social welfare and was not stealing the goods for her own use, “but to move on so she could get the money to support herself” (Limerick Post, 7/11/09). Judge Tom O’Donnell sentenced Mary to 10 months, suspended for 2 years. The Limerick Post noted that Ryan-O’Brien was currently serving a separate sentence and not due for release until 23rd March 2010 – some ten days after she was arrested in Galway.

Mary Ryan-O’Brien has interesting housemate.  One of her two addresses, 17 Sharwood Estate, Newcastle West, is also home to John Ryan. John, with at least 80 previous convictions of his own, was convicted of possession of a knife back in 2007 and was fortunate to get a suspended sentence last January for public order and theft offences.  He told Judge Mary O’Halloran, at Newcastle West District Court, that he’d rather go to hell than back to jail.  One of his offences involved stealing three bottles of alcohol from the Carry Out Off Licence in Newcastle West,  When confronted by staff, he told them, “I can't pay, I'm late for court, don't call the guards” before leaving.

The second address given by Mary Ryan O’Brien to various district courts around the country is 11, Raheen Square, Ballinacurra Weston. This residence is a big step up for a serial shoplifter, being the home of the Hehirs, a family with close connections to the Dundon-McCarthy gang. Darren Hehir is currently serving 3 years for firearms charges, while his brother Joe was recently arrested with Ger Dundon for tailing a prison van.  He is also romantically linked with Ger’s sister, Annabel. Both Joe and Darren were shot last year, apparently by other members of the Dundon-McCarthy gang.

Brennan and Baby

Some weeks ago, on the 26th of March, Liam ‘Baby’ Kelly and another man, Robert Crawford, were convicted in Rathkeale District Court after pleading guilty to burglary, criminal damage and possession of housebreaking tools.  Gardaí came across the two, plus another man (who pleaded not guilty), while they attempted to break into several cars at Newcastle West Autos at 2.45 in the morning of Thursday, 25th March last. Both Kelly (22), currently living at Broadleaf Apartments on Broad Street and Crawford (18) received six months sentences.

Liam Kelly is the brother of the late Aidan Kelly, shot dead in May 2006.

Liam was previously jailed for 3 months in 2007, for driving dangerously and failing to stop for Guards in St. Mary’s Park in August of that year.  2007 was an interesting year for Liam ‘Baby’ Kelly.

Liam 'Baby' Kelly

On Saturday night, 22nd September, 2007, Kelly, then living in Distillery View, Thomondgate, was drinking in what was then Dick Devane’s pub on Nicholas Street. Ian Brennan was drinking there too.  They argued over a girl who was apparently Kelly’s girlfriend, but whom Brennan was also involved with. Brennan later recalled, "I said to him; 'I don't know what you're getting bad over. She's meeting me one night and you another, that's the way she wants it.'" The girl in question, one Leeane Campbell McNamara, arrived and a fight broke out. Kelly and Campbell left the pub, now known as the Mucky Duck, soon after. 

Sometime later, at around 1:30 am early Sunday morning, Ian Brennan left the pub with friends and was on his way to a party in St. Munchin’s Street, St. Mary’s Park when he was shot twice.  He told Gardaí who arrived on the scene of the shooting shortly afterwards that Kelly had shot him.  Shortly after that, the Gardaí arrested Kelly after finding him under a child’s bed in the house of Leeane Campbell McNamara’s sister, on Oliver Plunkett Street, St. Mary’s Park.  Though it was just after 3 in the morning, Gardaí noticed a man’s tracksuit was being washed in the washing machine.

At a bail hearing on 2nd October 2007, Kelly’s solicitor, John Herbert, attempted to assure Judge Tom O’Donnell that Kelly would not interfere with potential witnesses, commenting that his client had been shot the previous June and “hadn’t tried to exact revenge” (Irish Times, 3/10/07). Kelly’s family home had been petrol-bombed that same month.

Liam ‘Baby’ Kelly went on trial at Limerick Circuit Court in November 2008 for possession of a shotgun with intent to endanger life. 

Ian Brennan testified he had been drinking in the bar with his friends, Brian Scanlon and Philip Collopy.  After they left the bar, they headed to Collopy’s house on nearby St. Munchin’s Street.  At this point, a car approached and someone with a sawn-off shotgun got out and shot Brennan twice.  Brennan insisted he was “110%” certain it was Kelly, but witnesses said the attacker wore a hood. Brennan testified how he was shot first in the back as he tried to run away and then in the stomach at close range by Kelly at about 1:45 on Sunday morning.  Brennan spent 3 weeks in hospital, including 6 days in intensive care, and lost his gall bladder, while his bowel was replaced.  Brennan claimed that, as a result of his injuries, he lost his job as a bricklayer, though the downturn in construction probably would’ve taken care of that.

Leeanne Campbell McNamara insisted she was elsewhere with her boyfriend, Kelly, at the time of the shooting.  They had gone to her sister’s house.  Kelly, she testified, was giving one of the children upstairs a bottle, when the Guards called.  Leeanne insisted Kelly had dropped the bottle and was searching for it under the bed when the Gardaí came upon him.

During the 3-day trial, after the judge warned jury members not to ‘Google’ things relating to the trial. The jury eventually informed Judge Sean O'Donnabhain they could not come to a verdict, not even a majority verdict. 

In February 2009, Liam ‘Baby’ Kelly went on trial for a second time for the same offence.  The trial lasted, again, for 3 days.  Philip Collopy testified at the trial, prompting the Judge to advise the jury that they should ignore the fact that Brennan was in the company of a friend (Collopy) wearing a bulletproof vest that night. Indeed, Collopy even wore his vest in the witness stand at the Limerick Circuit Court. Collopy famously remarked at the trial - "Sure I get shot at every week."  This was less than 2 months before Collopy accidentally shot himself in the head.

Philip Collopy

 Judge Sean O`Donnabháin, who also presided over Kelly's retrial, told the jury that the case against ‘Baby’ Kelly rested almost entirely on the visual identification made by the victim Ian Brennan. Brennan was not helped by the fact that witnesses, including his friend, Philip Collopy, insisted the gunman’s face was covered.This time the jury, after just an hour, acquitted Kelly unanimously.  The acquittal was greeted by loud cheers in the courthouse.

Incidentally, Ian Brennan seems particularly unlucky, as he previously survived another attempt to kill him (and his dad, Paddy) on the same street again with a sawn-off shotgun, two years previously, in 2005.  Back then, one William O’Neill and another man were charged, but not convicted, with trying to kill father Paddy and son, Ian Brennan. Even stranger, the same William O’Neill was, back in 2000, sentenced to 8 years for manslaughter, after, it seems, killing Paddy Brennan’s estranged wife’s boyfriend, Sean Colbert, in partner with Paddy’s older son, (and Ian’s brother) Andrew Brennan.  But that’s another story…