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…