Ger Dundon left Limerick in the company of another young man and woman and went to Spain last week. He has been a regular visitor to the resort of Estepona on the Costa del Sol where he was known to keep company with Dublin gang figure, Paddy Doyle, who was shot dead in the resort in January. Ger Dundon received a suspended sentence for possessing drugs for supply three years ago and has no known legitimate means of income. Doyle was one of the two feuding Dublin gangs originally based in Drimnagh and was suspected of carrying out three murders in November 2005.Last month, when Ger Dundon appeared at Limerick District Court on traffic offences, he pulled up outside the courthouse in the armoured 4X4 and summoned associates, all wearing body armour, via an external PA system built into the front grille of the car. They gathered around the car door and shielded him as he made his way to the entrance.Gardai also believe the recent upsurge of violent attacks in the city was directed from prison by Dundon's brother, the notorious gang leader Wayne Dundon. The McCarthy-Dundon gang have been building up supplies of weapons and other equipment and were said in court last year to have been behind the attempt to buy 20 automatic assault rifles, RPG rockets and handguns from people they believed to be arms dealers. It was, in fact, a sting organised by gardai and British police. Two associates of the gang were imprisoned in December for their part in the plot.
According to sources in Limerick, the McCarthy Dundons became the dominant gang force in the city last year after outgunning their deadly rivals, the Keane-Collopys. Tensions in Limerick had been rising in recent months before the latest round of murders. There have been at least a dozen shootings in the city related to the feuding. The worst, before last weekend, was the incident on March 25 when a gunman armed with an assault rifle fired shots into six houses in St Mary's Park. No one was injured but one bullet narrowly missed the head of an elderly woman sitting in her front living room watching television.At least half of the shooting incidents in the past two months have taken place in the tiny Island enclave of St Mary's Park, St Ita's Street and St Munchin's Street, directed at members of the Keane-Collopy family.Intelligence had already led gardai to strengthen their presence in the city by sending the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) from Dublin. The "less-than-lethal" Taser weapon was put at the disposal of the ERU two months ago after a recommendation by the Garda Inspector, former Boston police commissioner, Kathleen O'Toole.
After last weekend, the head of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Detective Chief Superintendent Noel White, effectively moved his headquarters from Harcourt Square in Dublin to Limerick to direct investigations.
The first murder attempt was on an 18-year-old in the city centre on January 14. A female relative of Noel Campion from Moyross, who was assassinated two years ago, was fired on two weeks later. At the end of March there were a succession of attacks on homes in the Island area where members of the Keane-Collopy clan live.
The first incident last weekend appears to be retaliation for the attacks in the Island. Gardai believe that the gangs decided to take advantage of the fact that Munster was playing Gloucester last Saturday in the Heineken European rugby cup and that many gardai would be taking the day off to enjoy the match.
At around 6am on Saturday a rock was thrown through the window of a house in O'Malley Park. The gunman then burst into the house firing an automatic handgun at a 27-year-old man as he fled upstairs. There were young children in the house at the time. No one was injured. The gunman fired another shot through the front bedroom window as he left.They began searching on Monday morning. "They were examining a mound of earth that had been disturbed and scraped away some earth. An arm popped out, literally," one source said. The gardai did not have an idea who they had found or even suspect that there had been a body at the site. It took almost a day to establish that James Cronin was missing and that it was most likely him. They believe Cronin had been buried in the shallow grave until a more permanent hiding place was found for him. In recent years Limerick gangs have begun hiding corpses in an effort to escape detection. Last week's comments by Limerick councillor John Gilligan on the unusual degree of hatred and viciousness associated with gang violence and also that children were being inducted into the gangs were backed up by local people.One local source, who asked not to be identified, said that the gang are using boys as young as seven to move drugs and guns around the city. Gang members aged only 10 to 12 were terrorising people. Parts of the city have become "no-go areas" for people because of their threats, the source said, adding: "They make the Mafia look like Mother Theresa's children."The source quoted the example of what happened in the aftermath of last year's murder of Moyross gang leader, Noely Campion. In the immediate aftermath of his murder, by the same gang suspected of carrying out last weekend's murders, his family and neighbours became the subject of a campaign of vicious intimidation. Within hours of him being gunned down in Thomand, relatives and friends were warned that they would be shot if they went to his funeral. Junior members of the gang had teeshirts printed with the legend: "Wack wack, Noely got it in the back." They wore them as they stood taunting members of the Campion family as his coffin was brought to burial, the source said.Bursts of shots were fired into the Campion house where his widow, Maureen, and their two children lived. Their car was burned out and then the house itself. Maureen Campion's sister's house next door was also burned out. Another neighbour with a severely disabled son was burned out, as was another neighbouring house because it was believed they too had attended the funeral. The attacks continued after the burning of the four houses. Shots were fired into a car driven by a young woman who was seven months pregnant, simply because she was associated with the family.