Larry and Shamie met da Silva to discuss setting up a heroin route from Nigeria to Dublin. But the Nigerian had no idea how dangerous it was to be seen mixing with the Dunnes. He was put under surveillance by the Drug Squad and his hotel bedroom was bugged. He stayed in Dublin for a number of days and his every move was watched. At one stage he hired a prostitute and brought her back to his room in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Eden Quay. Da Silva had three passions in life – sex, drugs and selling drugs in large quantities. One former member of the surveillance team later revealed how the Nigerian made a lot of noise while making love. As he was in the throes of passion, one mischievous officer held his walkie-talkie radio to the speaker receiving transmissions from the room. Every squad car in the city centre got a live feed from the action in da Silva’s room that night.
On 18 May, Det. Insp. Dinny Mullins and his team raided the Nigerian’s hotel room and found him with £45,000 worth of uncut heroin. In a notebook beside the bed the officers found telephone numbers for London, Italy, France, Greece, the US and Belgium. He also had Larry Dunne’s number. When Mullins asked him why he had it the Nigerian replied: ‘I do not want to talk about them. They are too big.’
Da Silva was charged and remanded in custody. Six months later, on 28 November 1983, he pleaded guilty to the drugs charges and received a 14-year jail sentence. However the court suspended the sentence on the condition that he took the next flight out of Dublin, which he gladly agreed to do. The sentence caused some controversy because two weeks earlier one of Shamie Dunne’s couriers, Paul Preston, had been jailed for 14 years for possession of £18,000 worth of hash. The brothers’ plans for a Nigerian supply route would never get off the ground.
On 21 June, Larry Dunne was back in the dock for his second trial at the Circuit Criminal Court. Christy and Shamie had advised him to take flight because he hadn’t a chance, but Larry decided to bide his time. Before the trial, the prosecution requested Garda protection for the jury for the duration of the trial, so they wouldn’t be got at.
Larry soon realized that his siblings were right. The court threw out a plethora of legal arguments and objections put forward by his defence team. He was going to be convicted. At lunchtime Dunne went to a local pub and ordered food. He went into the toilets and changed into new clothes which Christy had left for him. Larry slipped out a side door, into a waiting car and disappeared. He later dyed his hair and stayed in a safe house, before taking a ferry out of the country, armed with a large amount of cash and a few blank passports. The drug lord’s disappearance dominated the national newspaper headlines and the Gardaí launched a massive search for him.
A month later another key player in the family’s operation, Eddie Johnson, tried a similar stunt while awaiting sentence on drug charges in the Circuit Criminal Court. Johnson, from Fatima Mansions, had been one of the managers in the Dunnes’ drug-distribution network in the south inner-city. An addict since 1972, Johnson ran a dry-cleaning business on Harold’s Cross Road which had been financed by the Dunnes as a cover for the drug operation. The Dunnes’ lieutenant managed to slip out of his handcuffs and bolted through the door. The prisoner he was handcuffed to, Jem Dixon’s brother from Summerhill, also tried to escape but was caught before he got out of the courtroom. Johnson wasn’t as well organized as his boss and was recaptured that night.
Johnson and his partner, William ‘Blinkey’ Doyle, used a lock-up garage on Meath Street as the gang’s main storage depot. On 15 October 1982, Drug Squad boss Dinny Mullins and his officers raided the lock-up and caught Doyle and three other men in possession of £120,000 worth of heroin. One of the men arrested was INLA member Michael Weldon, who worked with Tommy Savage selling drugs and organizing bank robberies. It was an indication of the extent of the collaboration between the various criminal groups. The four men were charged but were subsequently acquitted, when the court found the Drug Squad had used a defective warrant. Less than a week after Doyle’s arrest, the Gardaí raided the lock-up for a second time and caught Johnson with another large batch of heroin. The Dunnes’ manager was charged, released on bail and went back to work. A month later the dreaded Drug Squad hit Johnson for a third time. This time he was busted with a large quantity of heroin and cocaine in his dry-cleaning premises in Harold’s Cross. In total, he had been caught with over £400,000 worth of heroin (over €1.4 million in today’s values) – the biggest seizure of the drug in Ireland at that time. In July 1983, Johnson pleaded guilty in the Circuit Criminal Court, where Judge Martin sentenced him to 12 years. Defence counsel pleaded for leniency on the grounds that he was a drug addict and was not the main player in the operation. The judge told Johnson: ‘If the sentence appears to be merciless it is as near to merciless as possible. The drugs problem has reached such epidemic proportions that an entire generation of Irish youth is being destroyed.’
In October 1983, the Dunnes received another blow. Shamie’s wife, Valerie, was jailed for three years for possession of stolen jewellery, which had been given to her husband as payment for drugs. Despite her husband’s infidelities, Valerie still refused to co-operate with the Gardaí, who knew that he was responsible for it. Shamie decided to let his wife take the rap. A few days later Mickey Dunne was jailed for seven years after he pleaded guilty to possession of heroin with intent to supply. His mother Ellen sobbed when she heard the sentence being announced. ‘It’s all right, Ma,’ Mickey said, ‘I was expecting fourteen.’
The following February, Christy Dunne and John Cunningham stood trial on the aggravated robbery charges from two years earlier. During the trial there were allegations of intimidation of witnesses, and Judge Frank Martin complained of receiving threatening phone calls. As a result both the judge and the witnesses were given armed police protection. In the end Christy and Cunningham were acquitted.
Shortly after he was sent down, Mickey Dunne was in prophetic mood when he was interviewed by journalist Maggie O’Kane for the Sunday Tribune. Dazzler wanted the world to know that he became a dealer because there were no other opportunities for him in the employment market. ‘I came back from England with ten years’ experience in the brewing business and tried to get a job with Guinness but the manager was warned by the police that the wages would be robbed in a week because I was a Dunne,’ Mickey moaned, in typical ‘victim’ mode. But then he made a chilling prediction. ‘Things are going to blow up out there,’ he warned. ‘They’re out there itching to step into the Dunnes’ shoes – itching to get up the ladder. They’re heavy and they’re going to bring the gun back onto the streets.’
Fresh from his brush with the law, Christy Dunne went on holiday to Majorca with his partner Mary Noonan and friends in June 1984. On 20 June, he was arrested by Spanish police after detectives travelled from Dublin with information that Dunne had buried £130,000 worth of stolen travellers’ cheques and false passports on waste ground near Illetas in Majorca. A young woman with a grievance against the philandering Bronco had travelled to Majorca with the detectives. She pointed out where the haul was buried and police dug it up. Dunne intended cashing the cheques on the island. They were part of a consignment of £500,000 worth of cheques, stolen from the American Express office in Grafton Street, Dublin, in March 1984. Five armed and masked men, one dressed as a Garda, had held the manager’s family hostage overnight. The following morning he was taken to the office by the gang who tied up the staff as they arrived for work. Over the following months £150,000 worth of the cheques had been cashed in various European cities.
Dunne was remanded in custody while the investigation continued. He was later charged with altering his passport and his driving licence, and cashing some of the stolen cheques in Majorca. Bail was set at £5,000 but Dunne didn’t have the money to pay it. Back in Dublin, his family ignored his pleas for help. They were punishing their older brother for turning his back on them when they were in trouble.
In April 1985, Dunne had a short trial in a Palma court. He admitted altering his passport but denied he was
a member of an international crime gang involved in large-scale robberies. The court convicted him of cashing the stolen cheques and he was jailed for two years and eight months. Gangland’s first Godfather was 46 years old.
Christy could not handle being inside and started a desperate campaign to win his release. He sent a blizzard of letters to influential figures in Ireland, the Irish Consul and Amnesty International, protesting his innocence. Bronco also tried to use the media, employing his old reliable claim of being set up: ‘I am a big fish according to the Irish police. They could never put me in this position but relied on innuendo and rumour as evidence against me.’
In another interview Dunne declared: ‘I am going fucking mental in here.’ He said he was now too old to ‘do the time’. ‘Jessie James and the other outlaws didn’t keep going until they were fifty,’ he said ruefully. On 29 October 1985, Christy Dunne was suddenly released unconditionally from prison. He was given no explanation for the surprise move. Ironically, on the day of his release another armed gang held up the same American Express office in Dublin. Bronco left Majorca on the first available flight.
Shamie Dunne had also been fortunate. The charge for possessing £400,000 worth of heroin was struck out on a technicality and he fled the country before the State had time to re-enter the case. He moved his operating base to London, where he remained in ‘voluntary exile’. He claimed that if he returned home he would be ‘harassed’ by the police. Shamie chose not to attend the funeral of his father, Bronco Senior, who died in 1987 at the age of 72. Most of the Dunne siblings became drug addicts and some of them, including Anne and Gerard, died as a result. It also destroyed many of their children, including at least three, one of whom was Larry’s daughter, who died from overdoses and AIDS-related conditions.
While Christy had been fighting an impossible battle to raise his bail money in Majorca, Larry was experiencing difficulties of his own. He was moving between Portugal and Spain to avoid being caught. But eventually the law caught up with him too when the picture in his passport aroused the interest of a Portuguese Immigration Officer. Larry was extradited back to Dublin where he was jailed for 14 years in April 1985. Hundreds of people from the communities worst hit by the heroin plague turned up that day to see Larry Dunne get justice. The angry mob tried to block in the police van carrying him from court, in a bid to attack him.
On his way to join the rest of his brothers, Larry made a chilling prophecy, similar to the one Mickey had issued to the world in October 1983. Larry’s words of wisdom would be used many times in following years to describe the changes that each new generation of villains brought to Gangland. ‘If you think we were bad,’ he said, ‘just wait till you see what’s coming next.’ It was one of the few truthful statements Larry Dunne ever made.
On the ground, community activist Mick Rafferty could see the direct link between what happened next and the situation we have today. He said: ‘By the time Larry was arrested, he had built up a hierarchy of dealers, right down to the street, to user dealers. His prophecy about what was coming after him and his family was correct. Because what you got then were a new breed of dealers and a new breed of people in gangs that had absolutely no respect. Because whatever respect the Dunnes had for where they came from, the next breed of dealers had none, and they were ruthless, and that has led up the present … where life is cheap.’
9. The Ultimate Price
Mickey Dunne didn’t rely solely on his crystal ball when he arrived at his chilling prediction about the future of organized crime. The first few years of the 1980s had already witnessed some of the worst violence in the country’s history, as terrorist and criminal gangs dragged Ireland to a state of near anarchy. By the time Dazzler was sent down in October 1983, gun law had been firmly established in Ireland and organized crime was moving to a new level of sophistication and brutality.
Since 1980, five Gardaí had been murdered by terrorist gangs during armed robberies. In less than two years after Dunne’s incarceration, three more Gardaí and an Irish soldier were also murdered without mercy. Like Deirdre Fallon, their widows collected the posthumous Scott Medals for bravery. The police were paying a very high price in their battle with the underworld.
When Garda Dick Fallon was shot dead by Saor Eire in 1970, it had heralded the return of the gun to Irish streets and a rapid descent into violent crime over the following decade. The execution of three officers in 1980 heralded the bloody start of an even more violent era. The IRA, INLA and the ‘ordinary’ criminal gangs continued to rob financial institutions throughout the country with apparent impunity – and they were displaying a brutal determination to avoid arrest.
On the afternoon of 7 July 1980, a three-man INLA gang arrived in the small town of Ballaghaderreen, County Roscommon. They were there to rob the local Bank of Ireland branch. One gang member remained outside, covering the almost deserted main street while his two accomplices ran inside. The first raider fired a shot into the ceiling and ordered everyone to get down, while the other jumped across the counter. He handed the manager a bag and told him to fill it with cash from the safe. ‘It’s better to lose money than have someone killed,’ he said, shoving a handgun in the banker’s face. At the same time the man outside had intercepted two, unarmed Gardaí – Brendan Gilmore and Brendan Walsh – as they arrived in a squad car to investigate. The officers were ordered at gunpoint to lie on the ground. Seconds later the other raiders ran to the getaway car and the gang drove off at speed, cheering loudly. It had taken them less than three minutes to rob £41,000.
Outside the town the gang changed cars. They sped off down a secondary road, in the direction of Frenchpark, but they met a patrol car at Shannon’s Cross. It was coming from Castlerea in response to the robbery. Inside were three uniformed officers, Henry Byrne, Derek O’Kelly and Mick O’Malley and Detective Garda John Morley, who was armed with an Uzi submachine-gun. The getaway car smashed into the patrol car as the gang tried to get past. The INLA raiders jumped out and without warning opened fire on the police car. Garda Henry Byrne was shot in the head and died instantly as he tried to get out of the back seat. The 29-year-old was married, with two young sons, and his wife, Anne, was pregnant with their third child.
Detective John Morley returned fire with a burst from his machine-gun. The gunmen made a run for it on foot, followed by the 39-year-old former Mayo County footballer. Morley, who had been hit in the initial attack, fired another burst in the direction of one of the gang members who was hiding in a ditch. Further up the road, he levelled his machine-gun at the other two raiders, who were trying to hijack another car, and ordered them to stop. They opened fire, hitting the detective in the leg. He fell backwards, landing beside a ditch. Morley managed to fire a third burst at the terrorists as he fell. The two INLA men fired more shots as they tried to take the driver, who was fighting them off, hostage. A short distance later the terrorists crashed the car and took another vehicle.
Meanwhile one of the bullets fired by the gang had severed an artery in Detective John Morley’s leg and he was bleeding to death. As he lay dying, Garda Derek O’Kelly urged him to hang on and tried to reassure him that help was on the way. ‘Say goodbye to my wife and kids for me,’ Morley whispered, as he lapsed into unconsciousness. The father of three died on his way to hospital.
The policemen’s deaths were the first double murder of members of the Garda Síochána since the foundation of the State. It brought to six the number of police officers killed in the Republic in the 13 years since the gangs had first appeared on the streets.
The Roscommon murders were greeted with the same level of universal shock, revulsion and anger as that of Dick Fallon, ten years earlier. It also added to the growing sense of despair among the public because of the spiralling violence. There was a feeling that nothing could be done to stop the savagery. Thousands turned out to show their solidarity with the families and colleagues of the two men at their funerals in County Mayo. Morley and Byrne were buried side-by-sid
e in a hillside cemetery overlooking Knock.
The investigation into the murders moved quickly, with hundreds of Gardaí and soldiers involved in the manhunt. They had already arrested the first member of the gang within an hour of the shootings. He was Colm O’Shea from Cork, a convicted armed robber with links to Saor Eire and the INLA. The 28-year-old had been shot in the chest by John Morley during the gun battle. The following day Patrick McCann, a 34-year-old from Dungarvan, County Waterford, was arrested near Frenchpark. Eight days later a third man, Peter Pringle, a 42-year-old former IRA man from Dublin, was arrested in Galway. The three men were charged with the capital murder of Garda Henry Byrne, possession of firearms and the bank robbery. A capital murder conviction carried the death penalty. Bizarrely, none of the suspects was charged with the murder of John Morley. The State’s prosecution service felt that a conviction for the capital murder of Garda Byrne would be more likely because he was in uniform – so the killers would have been in no doubt that he was a Garda.
In November 1980, the INLA men were convicted of Garda Henry Byrne’s murder, the armed robbery and possession of firearms. They were sentenced to death by hanging but this was later commuted to 40 years’ imprisonment without remission. Peter Pringle, however, was granted a retrial 15 years later, when the Court of Criminal Appeal ruled that new evidence in the case cast doubt on his original conviction. The Special Criminal Court subsequently struck out all the charges against him and he was released. McCann and O’Shea were not deemed eligible for release as part of the Good Friday Agreement and spent over twenty years in prison.
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