Fly posters were plastered around the city centre giving details of the arrangements. Hundreds of people lined the streets of Salford as an 18-piece bagpipe band led the horse-drawn funeral procession.
To an outsider looking in, it might have seemed odd that 'nightclub bouncer' Damien Noonan was being laid to rest with all the pomp and ceremony of a mafia don. But those in the know knew who the man really was.
Alongside his brothers Dessie and Dominic, Damien rose from a relatively poor, Irish, working-class upbringing in Whalley Range to become one of Manchester's most infamous crime bosses - the 'gangster of gangsters', as his friend former bare-knuckle boxer and TV personality, Paddy Doherty would later describe him.
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But an empire the brothers had spent years ruthlessly and violently building would come crashing down in the space of just 18 months. First Damien was killed in a motorbike accident, followed by the murder of Dessie, stabbed to death by a crack dealer in Chorlton.
The Noonan brothers - who grew up in a family of 14 siblings whose first names all began with the letter D - first made their mark in 1980s gangland Manchester by specialising in armed robbery. But with Dessie and Damien regulars on the doors of some of the city centre's most popular nightclubs, including the Hacienda, they soon realised drugs were a much more profitable way to make their fortune.
Smart, canny and astute, Damien was described by journalist Donal MacIntyre, who made a documentary about the brothers, as 'the UN peace keeper in gangland Manchester'. He bought and cemented loyalties by supporting different causes in his community, while also resolving disputes and rows.
He built links with other gangs in Manchester, Salford and further afield. Said to have been an associate of Salford 'Mr Big' Paul Massey, soon Damien and his brothers controlled much of the city's drug supply as house music, ecstasy and 'Madchester' made the city one of the clubbing capitals of the world.
At its height the Noonans were said to be making £50,000 a night from the Hacienda alone. But other gangs wanted a slice of the lucrative pie and were prepared to do whatever it took to get what they wanted.
Defending their turf came at a cost. The Noonans became 'synonymous with violence', former GMP officer, Martin Harding once said.
"They displayed very little fear," he added. "They had no fear of the authorities, no fear of prison. They were not scared to use violence."
At one point the brothers were said to be suspected of being involved in 25 murders - a figure mocked by Dessie in the McIntyre documentary. In 1991 Damien and Dessie were put on trial along side three other men for the murder of 'White Tony' Johnson, a leader of rival gang the Cheetham Hillbillies, who was shot dead in the car park of a Cheetham Hill pub.
But a jury failed to reach verdicts and a retrial was ordered which saw Dessie tried again alongside two other people. This time one defendant was cleared and the jury failed to reach a verdict on Desmond Noonan and another defendant. Judge Rhys Davies entered not guilty verdicts on their behalf as it was the second time the jury had failed to reach a decision and 'justice would not be served' by a third trial.
In 1999 Damien himself would become a victim of gun crime, shot while working the door of city centre venue the Phoenix Club. Then on July 26, 2003, Damien, a 37-year-old father of three, fell from a motorbike while on holiday in the Dominican Republic.
He was airlifted to the Jackson Memorial hospital in Miami, but he died four days later from what doctors described as 'blunt trauma'. His funeral took place almost a fortnight later at All Souls RC Church in Liverpool Street, Weaste.
The Requiem Mass was broadcast on a PA system outside to scores of mourners who were unable to get into the church. He was buried at St Joseph's Cemetery in Moston. On his imposing black and gold headstone the family inscribed: "Our family chain is broken/Nothing seems the same."
With Damien gone it was the beginning of the end for the Noonan dynasty. In March 2005, Dessie was stabbed to death by drug dealer ' Yardie Derek' McDuffus at a house on Chorlton's Merseybank estate, a couple of miles from the Whalley Range street where the brothers grew up.
His death, aged just 45, came just days before a Channel 5 documentary about the brothers was shown. That left Dominic at the helm of the family. But he would later be jailed for 11 years after being found guilty of 13 historical sex offences against four young boys aged as young as 10, left. The kingdom the Noonan's had savagely reigned over was gone.
"The minute (Damien) died they weren't half as powerful as they thought they were," said Paddy Doherty. "He was the gangster of gangsters in Greater Manchester."
READ MORE TRUE CRIME:
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