The man caught with the rifles used in the Regency Hotel shooting today breaks his silence — and claims he agreed to pay €30,000 to the Hutch gang for the weapons.
In the first part of our bombshell interview, convicted IRA member Shane Rowan spoke exclusively to The Star about his direct involvement in transporting the AK-47s used in the killing of David Byrne — as well as his dealings with Jonathan Dowdall and Patsy Hutch. Rowan, 44, from Donegal, spent five and a half years in prison after he says he was “caught red handed” transporting the three rifles from the Malahide industrial estate in north Dublin, where he had earlier met with Patsy Hutch — on March 9, 2016.
“I was caught red handed. So why even bother? All you’re doing is putting yourself under pressure and through a court case. Just get it done, get your time done and get out. I don’t regret it,” Rowan told The Star . “When I’m sitting on my deathbed at least I can say I done something.”
Read more: Family of David Byrne pay tribute with balloons on seventh anniversary of death at Regency Hotel
Gardai apprehended Rowan in Slane, Co Meath, just over a month after the Regency shooting and weeks after the IRA man had met Dowdall and Gerry Hutch at his home in Co Donegal to allegedly arrange peace talks. Garda ballistic experts later determined that the rifles discovered in the boot of Rowan’s car were the same ones used by the tactical team that shot and killed Kinahan cartel associate David Byrne in the foyer of the Regency Hotel on February 5, 2016.
Speaking today for the first time Shane Rowan claims he agreed to pay the Hutch gang €10,000 per rifle, planning to then “put them to bed” by burying them — until they might one day be used. However, he says when the job went “tits up” the money was never paid. 10 grand each. That was the going price.
“Somebody offers you weapons for sale, you either say yes or say no. Now normally if I was 100 per cent certain that they were the same weapons (used in the Regency) I wouldn’t have been down in Dublin getting them.
“They would have been dropped into the north,” he said. “But if they had told us out straight that it was the same weapons then I would still have taken them. A weapon is a weapon, let’s be real here. We’re in that game. I’m not going to question every weapon I get. It’s just not done. No armed group would ever question the background of something.”
Rowan, who served concurrent sentences for possession of the firearms and IRA membership, claims that at the time he didn’t think the Hutch gang would be stupid enough to keep the guns after the Regency hit. "Well, let me tell you, there were suspicions, but you wouldn’t think anybody would be stupid enough. I was expecting them to be in the Liffey or the Irish Sea or something.”
Rowan also claimed to us that later during his imprisonment in Portlaoise prison, Jonathan Dowdall insisted to him that the weapons were not the ones used in the Regency. “I asked him were they the same guns used in the Regency and he goes ‘no, no, no. They wouldn’t be stupid enough’,” he claimed.
Read more: Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch to learn his fate days after his 60th birthday
Unknown to Rowan at the time, gardai from the National Surveillance Unit (NSU) tracked his every movement from his home in Co Donegal to the Clarehall Shopping Centre in North Dublin — where he met with Patsy Hutch on March 9. Rowan was captured on CCTV going into the shopping centre, ahead of his planned meeting with Patsy — who has not been charged with any offence in connection with this.
As the Special Criminal Court trial of Gerry Hutch already heard, NSU officers claimed they observed Rowan then getting into a Toyota Yaris with Patsy. Meanwhile, other individuals were observed going to the boot of Rowan’s Vauxhall Insignia — and placing the three AK-47 rifles into the boot.
Speaking for the first time about the sequence of events, Rowan told The Star that he and Patsy went for a drive. Rowan says that later at the traffic lights he expressed concern to Patsy that gardai might be watching them.
“When I pulled out I spotted two people. I looked across at Patsy Hutch and I said ‘are they your guys? And he said no. I said, ‘I think that might be cops’.” Rowan then drove off the Malahide road and onto the M50 - heading back to the north. But he says he had a feeling that the game was up.
“I started battering the steering wheel again and I looked in my wing mirror and I seen the three jeeps coming and I pulled in. I had my hands up and they pulled me out. I went to court, went to jail and got out. That was the story there.”
Asked why he would ever get involved, Rowan says he believed the weapons would benefit what he called his “unit.” He added that he felt his actions meant something to the republican cause. “When I’m sitting on my deathbed I can say I done something. Rightly or wrongly, as you say, for your country.”
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