Limerick gangs: McDowell calls emergency meeting

The Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell has called an emergency meeting after Taoiseach Minister Bertie Ahern described the gangland situation in Limerick as "totally unacceptable in any civil society".

Kieran Keane was shot in the head late last night. He was found dead on the roadside just outside Limerick city with his hands tied behind his back.

He is a member of one of the feuding families allegedly connected to the abduction.

Another 30-year-old man with him was attacked with a knife and was seriously ill in hospital today.

The murder came just hours before the two brothers kidnapped from Limerick turned up safely at Portlaoise garda station after being missing for almost a week.

At around 3am today, officers at Portlaoise received a call from the two men, and a short time later they walked into the station.

Eddie Ryan, 20, and his 19-year-old brother Kieran, were reunited at the station with their mother Mary and the three returned home together.

Following the reunion, Ms Ryan appealed for an end to trouble between the feuding families.

She said: “I just hope that there isn’t any more trouble and there isn’t any more people hurt.

“I just want an end to everything. I want to live in peace now with my children.”

Ms Ryan said her sons were in deep shock and had not yet told her where they were taken by their captors.

“I just want to say thanks to the soldiers, to everyone that’s brought my children home to me today,” she said.

“And I want to say to the people who had my children: thanks for leaving them go and thanks for leaving them come home.”

The circumstances surrounding the brothers’ abduction were not yet known, but gardai were due to speak to them today.

The brothers – whose father Eddie was shot dead in a bar two years ago – were abducted last Thursday night by two armed and masked men. A shot was fired but their friend managed to escape and raise the alarm.

Troops were brought in to help police search through local woodland for the brothers, who were feared dead by their family and gardai.

Mayor of Limerick John Cronin appealed today for those involved in the recent cycle of violence in the Limerick area to stop.

“This is fairly unusual in the sense I have felt all along and said all along this is more personal than anything else,” he said.

“From my point of view there is nothing else involved, and all we can do is appeal to those within these groups to stop this because they are getting nowhere really.”

Local priest Michael O’Shea said he saw Eddie and Kieran being reunited with their mother.

“They are back safely to their family and there is so much excitement in the house now,” he told Irish radio.

Father O’Shea described Mary Ryan as a “delighted woman“.

“I was trying to keep that flicker of hope still alive even though it probably was running out with the days going by,” he said.