Murderer met with rival his gang tried to have killed

Evidence entered at the John Dundon trial which has amazed many related to a meeting in Cruises St on Oct 29, 2008.

Dundon, along with Barry Doyle, the gun-man who fired the fatal shots which killed Shane Geoghegan, met with Philip Collopy — a man the Dundons have tried to murder.

Collopy gave a statement to gardaí about the meeting, in which Dundon asked and got information from him about Johnny McNamara, the man Doyle was meant to shoot 10 days later.

Collopy accidentally shot himself at his home in St Mary’s Park on Mar 24, 2009, when he put a Glock pistol to his head not realising there was still a single bullet in the breech, and pulled the trigger.

Collopy, along with Kieran Keane, carried out the murder of Eddie Ryan in the Moose Bar in Nov 2000.

This murder was the catalyst for over a decade of feuding bloodshed.

Eddie Ryan’s associates linked up with the McCarthy-Dundons to get revenge and an elaborate plot was hatched in Jan 2003 to lure Keane and Collopy into a trap.

Collopy smelt a rat and did not accompany Keane to a meeting which turned out to be a double-cross.

Keane and his cousin Owen Treacy were abducted by five members of the McCarthy-Dundon gang and brought to a quiet country road at Drombanna, on the outskirts of Limerick City, late at night. Keane was shot in the head and Treacy was left for dead with multiple stab wounds.

Eddie Ryan’s sons, Eds and “Rasher”, were part of a staged abduction days before the Keane murder.

Treacy survived and his evidence led to the five-man McCarthy-Dundon gang being convicted of the murder of Kieran Keane.

One of the five was Dessie Dundon, brother of John Dundon.

CCTV footage and telephone material proved the two deadly rivals met to assist one another in criminal business: the planned murder of Johnny McNamara.