Two held as second brother is slain in vicious gang feud
TWO men in their early 20s were arrested last night as Limerick's vicious gang feud claimed another life.
John Ryan, whose brother Eddie was murdered more than two years ago, was gunned down as he worked at the front of a house at Cannon Breen Park in the Thomondgate area of the city.
Meanwhile, gardai are investigating a shooting in the Garryowen area of the city. The target of the attack was the home of murdered Limerickman Kieran Keane.
All gardai in the Limerick division were called in to help police the city last night amid concerns of further reprisals.
The hit on John Ryan is seen as a direct reprisal for the murder of rival gang leader Kieran Keane on January 29 last on the outskirts of Limerick. Five men have been charged with that murder but John Ryan was not one of them.
He is understood to have been shot up to four times in the abdomen and thigh. His condition was initially thought to have been stable but he deteriorated and died at the Mid-West Regional Hospital in Dooradoyle.
The assassination was carried out by two men on a motorcycle at around 6.30pm.
The motorcycle slowed down as it approached the house and the pillion passenger dismounted, discharged the shots from what appears to have been a handgun and got back on before they sped away.
Gardai believe that they drove straight to the nearby Island Fields/St Mary's Park area of Limerick where the gang once headed up by the late Kieran Keane is based.
Gardai are also investigating reports that a shooting across the city in the Southill area just minutes earlier may have been used as a diversion to draw them away from the northside area and enable the killers make a clean getaway.
No-one was injured in the earlier shooting.
The murder victim did not have a serious criminal record but is understood to have been singled out as the "father figure" of the Ryan family following the murder of his brother.
The killing is yet another vicious twist to a feud that has raged out of control since Eddie Ryan's murder in the Moose Bar in November 2000.
John Ryan and his family fled their Lee Estate home to live in the Moyross area following the escalation of hostilities last January with the murder of Kieran Keane.
Since his brother's murder 2½ years ago, John Ryan's home was shot at and petrol bombed up to 30 times by the rival gang.
And in an interview in the Irish Independent in January following the alleged kidnapping of his nephews Kieran and Eddie Ryan, who returned unharmed, John Ryan conceded that his own life was in danger.
He also admitted in a follow-up interview that the feud started out as a harmless schoolyard row between one of his daughters and a daughter of another main figure in the rival gang.
The feud blew up when his house was shot at in retaliation and his brother Eddie then took matters into his own hands days later when he tried to assassinate the rival gang leader.
His gun, however, jammed and days later Eddie Ryan was himself gunned down by two men in a packed public house.
One of his killers is understood to have been Kieran Keane, whose own life was taken in January.
John Ryan was in court in late January after being involved in a melee outside the courthouse with members of the rival gang.
It was claimed that he was the victim of "outrageous taunts" from his rivals over his nephews' alleged disappearance.
Associates of Kieran Keane, however, had vowed to avenge his death and in a chilling message to the Irish Independent days after he was gunned down, one anonymous gang member promised the Ryan family that they would come to see them and "the shots will be on us".
The murder investigation is being headed by Supt Willie Keane, Henry Street, who confirmed that the murder was feud related and asked that any witnesses to the shooting come forward immediately.
Last night's murder happened on the eve of the historic first sitting of the Central Criminal Court in Limerick.
The decision to move the court to the city was motivated by the need to free up garda time spent travelling to Dublin for major cases and to enable them to concentrate on the feud with round-the-clock armed presence in the troubled north-side area of the city where the feud has raged since January.
They have also thwarted at least two assassination attempts on leading members of the Ryan gang.
They also scored a significant success through the courts of late as a series of lengthy sentences were handed out to gang members on both sides of the feud for their part in separate attacks.
- Eugene Hogan
