Draper killing is latest legacy of ‘Ballymount Bloodbath’

IT began with an arson attack on a van by a teenager but escalated into twisted revenge that has so far led to the deaths of at least three people, possibly a fourth, and the jailing of a further seven.

Ronnie Draper, the burly bouncer shot dead as he manned the door of a city centre pub at the weekend, is the latest victim of a vendetta, largely conducted by the INLA, that started with a row over £600 between a well known west Dublin criminal and a businessman.

Draper, 25, had already survived one attempt on his life when a bomb placed under his car only partially exploded, leaving him shaken but otherwise unhurt. The Tallaght native had been a marked man since the events of an evening in October 1999, the so-called ‘Ballymount Bloodbath’, when an INLA man was fatally wounded during a vicious fight.