Armed gardaí on hand as crime boss laid to rest

ARMED members of the Garda Regional Response Unit monitored the funeral of Limerick crime boss Philip Collopy yesterday, as a horse-drawn hearse bearing an aluminium casket made its way through the city centre.

The Garda presence was notable as lunchtime traffic ground to a halt.

The cortege, led by two men in top hats, slowly travelled up O’Connell Street on its way to Castlemungret cemetery.

Four black horses drew the hearse, which was preceded by a van laden with large floral tributes and bearing the tricolour.

A boy mounted on a horse led more than 100 mourners on foot.

Collopy shot himself accidentally, early on Saturday, when showing friends a Glock semi-automatic handgun in the kitchen of his house at St Munchin’s Street in St Mary’s Park.

He had removed a magazine clip from the gun but was unaware that one bullet remained in the breech.

The shooting was captured by one person on a mobile phone camera which, along with the gun and ammunition, was taken from the scene by gardaí.

One of the floral tributes read: “Missed, never forgotten”. It was signed “Slashook”.

Addressing more than 300 mourners at the funeral Mass in St Mary’s Church, parish priest Canon Donough O’Malley said life was full of contrasts — joy, sorrow, grace and sin.

This contrast was there last week, he said, when Philip Collopy had his accident not long before the great Irish rugby and boxing successes.

“So, we see the contrasts taking place,” he said.

Mourner Declan Sheehy spoke of the deceased’s love of horses, pigeons and every type of animal.

Mr Sheehy, who described himself as Collopy’s best friend, said: “His family are heartbroken and will never get over this.”

As the casket was lowered into the plot, doves and pigeons were released.

Philip Collopy was a key figure in the Limerick feud and was suspected of being one of the two gunman who carried out the first feud murder at the Moose Bar in 2000 when rival gang member, Eddie Ryan, was shot dead.

The Keane-Collopy gang is based in the St Mary’s Park enclave, known locally as the Island Field.

On Tuesday night, the funeral cortege took in St Mary’s Park en route to St Mary’s Church, from Cross’s funeral home.