A city living on the edge

IT’S 49 days since the Ryan brothers were abducted in Limerick.

Twenty people have been arrested. The Garda Emergency Response Unit is still in the city. Yet, the threat of violence pervades.

The bitter gangland feud has already claimed two lives and sparked dozens of violent attacks.

Eddie, 20 and Kieran Ryan, 19, were kidnapped by three men at gunpoint late on the night of January 23, at Ballynanty, on the north side of Limerick.

A massive six-day manhunt, including the army and gardaí, failed to find them. The two turned up unharmed in Portlaoise, at 3am on January 30.

Crime boss Kieran Keane, 36, was murdered six hours earlier at Drombanna, four miles from Limerick.

Keane was the reputed killed of the Ryan’s father, Eddie, in the Moose Bar in November 2000.

From the beginning of the investigation gardaí said they were keeping an open mind on the abduction.

The Kieran Keane murder and the Ryan kidnapping merged soon after gardaí at Roxboro Road began investigating both incidents.

Today the house of John Ryan, the brothers’ uncle, in the Lee Estate is barricaded and empty.

Steel bars cover every window of the home near St Mary’s Park, the stomping ground of murdered crime boss Kieran Keane, 36.

Ryan’s home has been petrol bombed more than 30 times in the last three years. He has now fled to a safe house in Thomondgate.

A few doors up from Mr Ryan’s is the abandoned home of his sister-in-law. This house was fire bombed the weekend after Kieran Keane was killed.

During their triumphant homecoming the Ryan brothers said, while swigging bottles of Budweiser, that they didn’t want any more trouble.

“I’m grand, perfect and just happy to be alive. We’re going to get drunk and celebrate,” a relaxed Kieran Ryan said.

Their uncle John also hoped the feud was over and that peace had dawned just hours after his nephews arrived home. The fact that Kieran Keane was brutally murdered seemed irrelevant in the euphoria.

“It’s their own doing what happened, whether it’s someone else interfering or not, we don’t know, we didn’t do it anyway.

“If they want to call it quits, we’ll call it quits, if they don’t then that’s their problem,” John Ryan said.

Just days later the mood had changed and Kieran and Eddies’ mother Mary, vowed that she’d never leave her home in Kileely.

One neighbour who has watched the Ryans at close quarters believes they are very vulnerable.

“They have a few wild young lads but really they just don’t have the numbers to cope with what’s coming next. It’s going to get rough and they probably won’t be able for it,” he said.

In another indication that the feud has not abated, upwards of 10 men went looking for the Ryan brothers in the Irishtown area of Limerick city centre last Saturday week. The men called to a number of bars in the area trying to find them.

Eddie and Kieran Ryan are back living with their family on Hogan Avenue, Kileely. Kieran spends most of his time looking after his late father Eddie’s seven horses.

The Ryans joyous homecoming angered the Keane family who were preparing for their brother’s funeral. These tensions still linger.

The Garda Emergency Response Unit is continuing to patrol estates to keep peace, and general crime has fallen in the last few weeks.

However, it’s feared that even the heavily armed ERU won’t be able to prevent further violence, if the criminal gangs seek retribution for Kieran Keane’s killing. The feeling on the ground is that it’s only a matter of time before there is more trouble.

“That week in January was one of the blackest we’ve had in Limerick but the city has weathered the storm. Once gardaí got the resources they looked for, they were able to get on top of the problem.

“But I think people in Limerick have resigned themselves to the fact that these gangs will continue to antagonise and murder one another,” St Mary’s Park based city councillor John Gilligan said.

The south-side gang suspected of killing Kieran Keane, and stabbing his nephew Owen Treacy, has also returned from Manchester, heightening fears of further violence.

More than 30 of this gang, including children and grandmothers, fled in the days following Keane’s murder.

This gang, which numbers about 70, controls the drugs trade in Manchester and also has bases in the West Midlands of Britain.

Some of its key members have returned to the Ballinacurra Weston area in the last few days.

The gang is suspected of carrying out the abduction of the Ryans. This kidnapping was a smokescreen to take attention off the plan to kill Keane, some gardaí believe.

Given that the Keane killing was possibly part of a turf war to gain control of the drugs trade on the north side of Limerick, the well-armed gang felt they needed to come back and assert their authority in the city. The gang has close connections with some members of the travelling community.

THEIR return has re-ignited fears that the bitter feud will escalate again. There has been ongoing contact between the UK police and Limerick gardaí to try and curb the activity of this group.

“We know more about them at any given time than they know. There would be regular contact between ourselves and police in the UK,” a senior Limerick garda said.

Gardaí are looking at the possibility that two other killings carried out last year could be linked to this third gang.

Father of two Brian Fitzgerald, 34, was gunned down when he returned to his Corbally home after finishing work at Doc’s nightclub. It’s believed he was killed because he thwarted a drugs gang trying to enter the club.

Mr Fitzgerald’s suspected killer is understood to have been hired somewhere in the north of England.

And any hope of a peaceful resolution seems unlikely with senior gardaí admitting that the gangs are unlikely to sit down and make peace. It’s seems far more likely that there will be more bloodshed.

“It’s just not in these guys’ nature to sit down and sort this out. There’s too much hatred there,” a garda source said.

Kieran Keane was last seen driving through St Mary’s Park in his blue Passat car with his nephew Owen Treacy, 30. This was at 7pm, he was found dead at Drombanna, four miles from the city, just after 9pm on January 29. Keane’s hands were tied behind his back and he was shot once in the back of the head.

Keane had earned a reputation for acting recklessly and didn’t take precautions, even though he was Limerick’s top criminal.

On the night he was killed it’s believed Keane, a married father of two, had contact with the third gang. His car was later found abandoned in Garryowen.

The gang shot Kieran Keane, but then the gun jammed when they went to shoot his nephew Owen Treacy. The gang left Treacy behind, after stabbing him seven times, believing he was dead.

Treacy was stabbed seven times to the upper body and he spent two weeks in hospital. None of his injuries resulted in any long-term damage and he was able to attend his uncle’s funeral.

This is the second time that a member of the Keane clan has cheated death after a gun jammed.

Just days before his own murder, Eddie Ryan tried to kill Christy Keane but the gun got stuck.

Christy Keane is now serving a ten-year sentence in Portlaoise for drugs offences. The extended Keane family, who run a coal and gas business, own about 38 properties in St Mary’s Park.

A lack of expertise with sophisticated 9mm weapons combined with the poor storage of ammunition could explain these miraculous escapes, gardaí believe.

Apart from the obvious hatred, the biggest force underpinning the violent feud is money earned from drugs.

During the last five years there has been an estimated 300 million worth of drugs seized by the gardaí and international police, that was destined for Limerick gangs.

Since the Garda Emergency Response Unit arrived there has been a major reduction in drugs passing through the city. This has also hit the supply of drugs into Cork and the midlands.

Gardaí have become increasingly worried that cocaine is gaining a firm foothold in Limerick.

Children as young as 13 are using ecstasy in the city with some taking as many as five tablets a night. The discovery of more than 1.5m worth of drugs in the Mid-West last year follows seizures totalling 3m in 2001.

There is no timeframe on how long the ERU will stay in Limerick but Commissioner Pat Byrne has vowed to keep the unit there until there is peace.

Operation Oileann which aims to clamp down on serious criminal activity in Limerick is also still ongoing. The ERU bill is running into millions but local community workers believe this won’t solve the problem in the long term.

“There’s no point in throwing millions at the problem. We need to offer people a healthier lifestyle.

“I could sit here and look out the window and I could show you lads that are going to get caught up in this. If I went down to the bookies they wouldn’t even take a bet on it, because it’s that likely,” Councillor John Gilligan said.