Murdered man may have fought gangland criminal

A FATHER of nine, singled out and shot dead as he played a game of pool in a pub, may have been killed after he was involved in a fist fight with a member of a criminal gang.

Thomas Canavan, who lived with his partner in Dublin’s south inner city, was shot dead in front of three friends on Monday night.

Gardaí are investigating reports he was involved in a row some time in the last couple of weeks and. whether his death is connected to the fight.

Mr Canavan, aged 35, of Myra Close, Inchicore, was married with children aged between five and 16. He had no criminal convictions or known gangland connections.

But the manner of his killing suggests it was a professional hit. The gunman, wearing a motorcycle helmet, calmly walked through Cleary’s pub into the pool room and fired off three shots from a handgun.

One customer, a local man, said “There was what sounded like three cracks and the man with the helmet just strolled calmly out again.

“At first everyone froze but then some women who seemed to know the man started crying and ran to him and the barmen called the gardaí.”

The murdered man was singled out by the killer from three others around the pool table. Mr Canavan died from a gunshot wound to his upper body. Following the 9.15pm shooting, the Drimnagh native was rushed to St James’s Hospital but was pronounced dead 45 minutes later.

“We are investigating reports that he was involved in a fight recently but if he was, it was not reported to us. This is second and third hand information but it’s something we are looking at. If it followed a fight, then life is cheap,” said one garda source.

One of the reasons detectives are looking so closely at the reported bust up, which did not take place in the pub is the absence at this stage of any other possible motive.

In previous gangland-style shootings those killed were known to gardaí and detectives immediately had a number of motives to work off. “This case is different,” said the garda source.

Superintendent Eddie Quirke, who is leading the murder investigation from Kevin Street Garda Station, has appealed for witnesses to the shooting and the getaway. The gunman is believed to have escaped on a motorcycle driven by another person.

Supt Quirke said some of those in the bar at the time of the shooting left before gardaí could talk to them. He appealed for them to come forward.

This is the second shooting to occur in Cleary’s pub in recent months. Last October, a 67-year-old man suffered facial injuries after a man walked in and fired a shotgun. That shooting is not connected to Monday’s murder.