Final curtain yet to fall on Kelly’s life and death
THE investigation into the shooting which claimed the life of notorious Limerick crime figure Mikey Kelly is still ongoing, a garda spokesman revealed yesterday.
A massive file into the shooting - which happened at the home of Mr Kelly’s mother in Southill on May 14 last year - is almost complete.
The Kelly family claim the former Limerick city alderman was shot by an intruder as he lay in bed in the upstairs room at No 7 Lilac Court at around 8.45am that May morning.
But a major garda investigation has failed to find any evidence of a person entering or leaving No 7 Lilac Court around the time of the shooting.
No gun was found at the scene and to date the weapon has not been recovered despite extensive garda searches.
Mikey Kelly, aged 48, was rushed to the Mid-Western Regional Hospital and died on June 14 without regaining consciousness.
Following his funeral to Mount St Oliver cemetery, a Sunday newspaper claimed the gun which discharged the fatal shot had been buried with Mr Kelly in his coffin.
In a bid to disprove this claim, furious family members went to the cemetery with a digger and shovels and proceeded to dig up his grave.
After gardaí intervened, the family agreed to obtain an exhumation order.
This procedure was fast-tracked and later that day, the remains were exhumed and a search of the coffin proved there was no gun inside.
Mikey Kelly was then finally laid to rest.
Kelly was at one time Limerick’s most feared criminal and spent more than 11 years in prison.
While he was a central figure in many serious criminal investigations, it was a trawl of his business affairs by the Criminal Assets Bureau that brought about his final downfall.
He served six months in prison after being convicted of 11 counts which included failure to make tax returns and making false returns.
These convictions related to his one-time very lucrative security company, M&A Kelly, which he ran with his brother Anthony.
In 1999, Kelly turned his attentions to politics and topped the poll in Ward Three, which covers his own stronghold of Southill.
During his time on the council, he was brought under arrest to the city court which is housed in the same building as the council chamber, charged with assaulting his wife Majella.
This case collapsed when she withdrew allegations she made to gardaí.
Subsequently in 2002 she brought a private prosecution against Det Insp (now Supt) Jim Browne which was thrown out of court by the President of the District Court Peter Smithwick who described it as an “evil conspiracy” against the garda officer by the Kellys.
The Kellys had to pay huge legal costs.
In his younger days, Mikey Kelly had no bother doing time in prison.
His reputation ensured he had the respect of his fellow lags.
Anything that Kelly wanted, he got.
However, his last stint behind bars, which included Christmas 2003, took a heavy toll.
Prison staff say he became introvert and rarely moved out of his cell to mix with other prisoners.
On his release he left the family home in Ballyneety and moved in with his mother, Rita at Lilac Court. Kelly was only out of prison a short time when what proved to be a fatal shot was discharged in the upstairs bedroom of his mother’s home.
In February 2002, Kelly was at the centre of a bizarre incident when he claimed he was shot in the house at Ballyneety by two men wearing balaclavas and dressed in garda uniforms.
He said that Majella and their sons - aged 15, 13 and 10 - were asleep at the time of the raid.
X-rays showed a projectile lodged in Kelly’s abdomen: but he refused surgery to have it removed.
Gardaí suspected that a pellet gun was discharged by a person known to Kelly during an argument.
The file now being completed into the fatal shooting in May 2004 is unlikely to lead to anyone being charged.
It is expected that the inquest into Mikey Kelly’s death will then be set for September by the coroner. It should be the final chapter in the life of Limerick’s Hard Man.
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