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.