Gardai had to protect homes, sweep churches for bombs and man rooftops for Hutch family wakes and funerals to foil Kinahan cartel plans to kill mourners, a senior officer has revealed.
Inspector Tony Gallagher, who retired from the force after nearly 39 years this week, has told how he and his team had to take unprecedented measures due to the threat posed, declaring: “It was like a warzone.” In the wake of the February 5, 2016 Regency Hotel attack in North Dublin which claimed the life of Kinahan associate David Byrne, the mob began their onslaught.
A total of 18 men were shot dead in the feud, a level of violence the State had never seen before from an organised crime gang. Following Byrne’s murder, cartel boss Daniel Kinahan ordered his people to indiscriminately kill members of the Hutch family or anyone connected to them.
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Three days later, on February 8, a gunman blasted Gerry “The Monk” Hutch’s brother Eddie to death at his north inner city home. The 58-year-old was an innocent taxi driver. As the feud spiralled out of control, Insp Gallagher, based at Mountjoy Garda station, was tasked with overseeing the operation around Eddie’s wake and funeral.
At the time, gardai had received information that the Kinahans had brought a hitman in from the UK. He was to target people at the wake, which was held at a Hutch relative’s home in the north inner city, and at the funeral at Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Sean MacDermott Street.
Rooftops in surrounding areas were also manned with armed officers due to fears Kinahan thugs might take aim from above. Investigators had other information that the cortege could be targeted on its way to Glasnevin cemetery.
Speaking about Eddie’s funeral to the Irish Mirror, Insp Gallagher said: “It was an extraordinary time because in the preparations for our plan, we were getting intelligence that people were going to be targeted at the funeral and at the wake. So the in-depth detail you had to put into your plans to cater for all of the risks including out in a funeral home, including the Mass...for the very first time we had bomb sweeps of the church.
“They were very different times. You get to hear, in the ether, different threats or proposed threats. And we couldn’t take them lightly.
“We occupied the rooftops. We planned for people who were going to target the funeral. We planned for people who had an intention perhaps for bringing incendiary devices to the funeral. So that involved using specialised units like the Emergency Response Unit for the very first time in normal policing.
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“But such was the threat at hand, such was the potential audaciousness, we had to take every step possible.”
On the day of the funeral, The Monk hopped out of the back of a van outside the church, disguised with a wig. Gardai used surveillance cameras to identify him. It was the last time he was seen in Ireland before his arrest in Spain last August.
That day, Hutch walked alongside Noel Kirwan, a friend who had no involvement in crime. Unbeknownst to Gallagher at the time, he would later oversee the funeral of 62-year-old Kirwan, shot dead in his car by a Kinahan hitman in December of that year.
In all, the inspector led the policing plans around the funerals of Eddie, Kirwan and The Monk’s 36-year-old nephew Gareth Hutch in 2016 as well as that of Derek Coakley Hutch and Jason “Buda” Molyneux, both 27, in 2018. They were murdered within days of each other.
Insp Gallagher said: “It was like a war zone. You arrived at a situation where you had the wake in the houses of each of the persons who fell victim to murder. It was like a heavily armed cordon. And that was unusual and unnatural.”
Coakley Hutch, another nephew of The Monk, was killed near Wheatfield Prison on January 20, just hours after visiting his brother Nathan in the jail. Insp Gallagher revealed the family were unwilling to proceed with the funeral until Nathan was allowed out to see his brother’s body.
He said: “We organised a visit to the funeral home in the small hours of the morning to facilitate a grieving brother. I felt it was a nice thing to do.”
Just 10 days after that murder, the cartel took out their next target, Molyneux, at James Larkin House in the North Strand area of Dublin. The feared gangster was a close friend of Coakley Hutch and had been at his wake just before he was killed.
Covert patrols were in place but Insp Gallagher believes the attack highlighted the risks hitmen were willing to take.
He said: “Molyneux was at the wake of Coakley Hutch and on the way back, he was targeted. That was a particularly audacious hit considering the intensification of the patrols in our area.”
For Molyneux’s funeral, the inspector felt there had to be a message sent to the gang and he spoke to the priest leading the service.
He said: “I had a very humane chat with him and I said to him, ‘Where does it stop? I think as part of your talk at the church there has to be some kind of message if appropriate to disincentivise this gangland hierarchy, this gangland activity, that it’s not an attractive career because you’ll end up like the persons you are at a mass for’.
“We talked about that and in his own way he introduced his own subtle message to the congregation.”
Molyneux’s murder was the last Kinahan hit carried out as part of the feud that left 18 men dead.
Insp Gallagher added: “Now whether that was entirely coincidental or perhaps families feeling the greater loss of young people who have died. I do feel it resonates with them because I have visited the families and they have suffered and still suffer.”
Gang boss Daniel Kinahan, 44, dad Christy Snr, 65, and 41-year-old brother Christopher now have $5million bounties on their heads. Gardai have had major success with 79 convictions against cartel members in recent years including 12 for murder and 23 for attempted murder.
But reflecting on the period of the feud, Insp Gallagher said: “It was an escalation of threat that hit the world headlines. The whole boxing environment was brought into the spotlight. It was an intensification of policing that I’d never been involved in before.”
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