Cocaine Wars

by Mick McCaffrey

  On 23 February 2002, at around 2.10 a.m., members of the extended Rattigan family were returning after a night out to Brian’s aunt’s house. On the way to her house, words were exchanged between Brian and two brothers in Basin Street. Brian and Joey Rattigan got a hold of bricks and other weapons and viciously beat the pair. A man appeared to help the brothers, and he was savagely beaten and later required eighty stitches to a head wound. During the altercation Brian Rattigan produced a black revolver. Searches of the Rattigan home on Cooley Road were carried out under Section 29 of the Offences Against the State Act, and a black revolver with three blank rounds was found. Both Brian and Joey Rattigan were detained.

  On the night of St Patrick’s Day, 2002, Brian Rattigan learned that a number of Freddie Thompson’s gang were drinking in Judge Darley’s pub in Parkgate Street. He drove past the pub and fired a number of shots at it. He was stopped by Gardaí shortly after the incident, at around 1.00 a.m., but there was no evidence to hold him, so he was told to go home. Following the pub shooting, Rattigan was unaware that Freddie Thompson had held a meeting and decided that tonight was the night that Rattigan would be taken care of. It was just before 4.00 a.m., and Rattigan’s house was quiet. Joey Rattigan was lying on the couch in the front room watching television, while Brian Rattigan and Natasha McEnroe lay asleep in a downstairs bedroom. Sharon Rattigan and Shay O’Byrne were sleeping in an upstairs room and Dinah Rattigan was also fast asleep. Joey was about to turn in for the night when he saw a man coming up the driveway wearing a balaclava. He jumped up and ran into the back bedroom, where his brother and Natasha McEnroe slept. As he entered the room, he heard a number of bangs from the direction of the front door. He shook Brian Rattigan but couldn’t wake him, although McEnroe quickly woke up. Joey shouted: ‘Natasha, get up quick. There’s fellas outside with “Ballys” and guns. They’re coming in.’ Joey was visibly shaken and jumped out a back window into the back garden, where he hid behind a bush. Natasha desperately tried to wake Rattigan from his slumber but he would not move. She ran into the adjoining en-suite bathroom and heard the front door being smashed with three or four bangs. She had the toilet door partly open and saw two men go into the bedroom where her boyfriend lay sleeping. The light was on in the bedroom and bathroom, so McEnroe had a good view. A couple of seconds later, she heard the sound of a gunshot and knew that Brian had been shot. After another couple of seconds, the two shooters ran past her. She shouted ‘You dirty bastard, come back here’ and ran into the hallway towards the front door as the men were leaving. The two gunmen were wearing dark clothes and balaclavas. As they turned around towards her, one of the men had pulled his mask up revealing half of his face. He stared at her and just laughed. He was quite small in size with a fat head. She later told Gardaí that she didn’t know who he was, but if she saw him again she would be able to recognise him. The second gunman was a lot taller and was carrying a shotgun in his right hand. The pair then left the house and sped away in a waiting car.

  Natasha ran back into the bedroom and found Brian covered in blood lying on the bed. She quickly rang 999 and asked for an ambulance and the Gardaí.

  Sharon Rattigan was woken upstairs by the sound of loud banging and the unmistakable noise of breaking glass. She was afraid to leave her bedroom to investigate what was happening. She heard the gunshot coming from the vicinity of her brother’s bedroom downstairs. She then heard Natasha screaming, and after a few minutes she went down, and saw Brian covered in blood. Sharon never saw the gunmen. Shay O’Byrne was in bed beside Sharon and also woke up when the loud noise started. He was afraid that whoever was downstairs was going to come up. He could hear footsteps on the wooden floor downstairs, and after a loud bang he heard Natasha McEnroe crying out. He then heard a car being driven away. He ran down and saw Brian lying critically injured. Dinah Rattigan also got a rude awakening and heard the words ‘they’re shooting’ coming from a room below. She ran down to confront the gunmen. She was too late, however, and looked out the front-room window to see three men wearing balaclavas running away. Fearing the worst, she ran into the back bedroom and saw Brian. There was a large hole in his back with blood oozing out of the wound. It was obvious that his condition was extremely serious.

  At 4.00 a.m. the crew of the Sundrive Road patrol car, Gardaí Michael O’Donovan and Michael Reidy, responded to a call reporting a shooting at Cooley Road. They were met at the front driveway by a visibly upset and distressed Joey Rattigan. Garda Reidy went into the house and found Brian Rattigan with blood coming out of an open wound. Garda O’Donovan observed five shotgun cartridges on the ground outside the house, and the scene was sealed off. Shortly afterwards, Jerome Rouiller and Dermot O’Reilly from the Dolphin’s Barn Fire Station arrived at the scene, after receiving notification of the call eight minutes earlier. They observed that the victim had gunshot wounds to his stomach and back. After dressing the wounds, they rushed Rattigan to St James’s Hospital. When he arrived at the hospital, Rattigan’s injuries were thought to be life-threatening, and doctors feared that he would not survive. He had suffered a gunshot wound to the left side of his back, with the bullet exiting through the abdomen. Because the shot was from very close range, it would not have been at all surprising if he died. There was little doubt that his shooting was a bona fide murder attempt, not just a warning.

  Over the next few days, his condition gradually improved, and although it took nearly three months of recuperation, Rattigan would live to see another day. His would-be assassins had failed, and there was little doubt that Rattigan would strike back.

  A technical examination of the scene recovered three different types of bullets, indicating that three firearms had been used by the assassination team. There was evidence that at least five shotgun rounds had been fired outside the house and inside the hallway. A .44 calibre round was recovered from the floor. A .32 calibre bullet was taken from the mattress. This was the round that hit him in the back and exited through his stomach. Because Brian Rattigan was asleep when he was shot, he did not know who his attackers were, although he no doubt had a good idea who was responsible. He did not cooperate with the Garda investigation, and inquiries led Gardaí to suspect that Freddie Thompson and Paddy Doyle were the gunmen, and that two other people were involved: one armed with a firearm and the other driving the getaway car.

  When Gardaí initially quizzed McEnroe on the afternoon following the shooting, she told them that she did not recognise the gunman. On 8 August she was again interviewed, and told detectives that she did recognise the man who had shot her boyfriend, but she was afraid of him at that time and was still afraid of him to this day. She said that the man with the fat head was Freddie Thompson from Maryland, and that she didn’t shout, ‘You dirty bastard, come back here’, as she initially indicated, but rather said: ‘Come back here you bastard, Frederick Thompson’, but Freddie just laughed at her. She said that Thompson was only four feet away from her when she saw him, and she was certain that he was in the house and was carrying a handgun. Freddie Thompson had been detained on suspicion of carrying out the shooting the day before McEnroe’s revelation, and was in Sundrive Road Garda Station when McEnroe was re-interviewed by Gardaí, who were hoping that she would remember something more. Freddie Thompson was well versed in dealing with police interrogations. During seven rounds of interviews with detectives, he replied, ‘Nothing to say’, to each and every question, and refused to sign the notes of the interview on each occasion as well. He was initially held for twenty-four hours with his period then extended for a further twenty-four hours by Chief Superintendent Noel Smith. On the second day of interrogations, Gardaí told Thompson that McEnroe’s statements implicated him. He did not finch. At the eighth and final interview, which, like all the previous ones, was recorded on video, Thompson stuck to his script. He knew his time in custody was nearing an end, and was looking forward to going home. When the camera was turned off, Thompson turned around and said to Detective Garda Paul Gilton: ‘Natasha Mc
Enroe will never go to court with that statement. This will never go to court.’ When asked what he meant, Thompson replied: ‘Mark my words, she won’t go to court with that.’ Thompson was then released without charge, pending a file being sent to the DPP. In correspondence with the DPP’s office, Detective Garda Ronan Lafferty said: ‘This case rests solely with Brian Rattigan’s girlfriend, Natasha McEnroe, who recognised one of the intruders into the house on Cooley Road, Dublin 12, on the 17 March 2002 and [who] shot Brian Rattigan. She knows Frederick Thompson for a number of years, and in her initial statement she described him and admitted she would recognise him again. In a second statement she names the culprit as Frederick Thompson [who she says was] armed with a handgun. She stated that she was too scared to name him in the first statement. I recommend that Frederick Thompson be charged with Aggravated Burglary, Unlawful Possession of a Firearm with Intent to Endanger Life and Attempted Murder.’ Gardaí were hopeful that, with Natasha McEnroe’s statement, they would be able to do what had never been achieved so far – putting Freddie Thompson behind bars. However, Gardaí were disappointed when the DPP came back and directed that no charges should be brought. Freddie Thompson’s prediction was right: the case never did get to court.

  With Brian Rattigan temporarily out of the way, Freddie Thompson and his gang quickly gained the upper hand in the feud. They took advantage of the fact that their leading rival was severely weakened to exert their supremacy on the streets.

  While Freddie was establishing himself as the top dog in drug dealing in Dublin 12, fate intervened and took the life of the man who had inadvertently kicked off the whole gang war. At 10.35 p.m. on 22 May 2002, a lone gunman entered a Portakabin outside Kilworth Road in Drimnagh, and fired two shotgun rounds at close range to the chest and leg of twenty-six-year-old Derek Lodge, who was repairing a second-hand TV. He died instantly, after a round pierced his heart. Four years previously, Lodge had set fire to Declan Gavin’s motorbike, which led to the gang splitting in two with tragic results. While Declan Gavin had gone on to lead his side of the gang and continue to sell drugs, Lodge had distanced himself from the Rattigan gang, and gradually left the feuding behind. He spent a lot of time in his unofficial workshop, which led to frequent rows with some of his neighbours, because it blocked most of the road. Lodge had a six-year-old son from a relationship that had ended. Gardaí believe that he wanted a life free from crime so that he could watch his son grow up.

  Although he was not involved with Brian Rattigan and the others, he had not completely given up on breaking the law. It is believed that Lodge had become involved in a dispute with a local man, and that Lodge was constantly threatening and harassing the man and his family, and making their lives hell. Gardaí believe that a hit man was paid to shoot Lodge as a warning and to make him back off. However, the hit man went too far and shot Lodge dead, instead of just shooting him in the leg, as had been intended. On 25 May 2002, Gardaí received a phone call informing them that ‘The man who did the murder in Tallaght on St Stephen’s Day got a €1,000 to shoot Derek Lodge.’

  The man referred to was Shay Wildes, a notorious hit man from Tallaght. On St Stephen’s Day 2001, Wildes, who was born in December 1967, walked up to Joseph Cummins outside the Dragon Inn and shouted, ‘Merry Christmas,’ before shooting him in the head from close range. Wildes then fired two more shots into Cummins as he lay on the ground, killing the father of five. Wildes later claimed that he carried out the murder as revenge, because Cummins had allegedly raped a woman eighteen months previously, although there was no evidence to back this up. In September 2003, Wildes received two life sentences after he was found guilty of the murder and possession of the murder weapon, a .22 semi-automatic handgun. Gardaí believe that Wildes operated as a gun for hire, had links to the Continuity IRA and was behind protection rackets in and around Tallaght. In April 2003, Shay Wildes also coldly shot dead thirty-two-year-old Declan Griffin in a packed pub in Inchicore. Wildes had been paid by a gang that Griffin owed money to, and lured the victim to the pub, saying that they would offer him protection. Griffin was suspicious and arrived expecting trouble. He was wearing full body armour and had a pistol in his waistband to protect himself. But before he got a chance to take it out, Wildes calmly shot him in the head, through his right ear from close range with a .38 pistol, before strolling out. A jury later found him not guilty of the murder. Witnesses due to give evidence in the case had been intimidated, and Gardaí were also threatened. Although he was later arrested in connection with Derek Lodge’s murder, Wildes replied, ‘Nothing to say’, to every single Garda question. He was released without charge. Nobody was ever charged with Derek Lodge’s murder. The investigation remains open.

  In the eyes of ‘Fat’ Freddie’s gang, anybody involved or suspected of being involved in Declan Gavin’s murder was fair game. On 28 May 2002, a man, who the gang believed had telephoned Rattigan on the night of the Gavin murder informing him that ‘Deco’ was outside Abrakebabra, was shot. There is no evidence that such a phone call ever took place, but the victim was shot in the chin with a .38 round when he opened his front door at 3.00 a.m. The victim refused to make a statement or co-operate with Gardaí, but members of the Thompson gang were the Gardaí’s prime suspects.

  Even though Brian Rattigan was still recovering from his injuries and was out of the picture for the moment, the Thompson gang was on high alert to finish him off, should he be seen anywhere near Crumlin. He was staying in a safe house and keeping a low profile. In July 2002 the opportunity arose to take out Rattigan’s beloved younger brother Joey. It wasn’t a chance that the Thompson gang was going to pass up.

  On 16 July 2002, eighteen-year-old Joey Rattigan was sitting at home with his girlfriend when he received a call asking him to go down to Dublin 8 for a few pints. He went to the Pimlico Tavern pub, in the heart of Dublin’s south inner city. There Joey met twenty-one-year-old Paul Warren, the man that had made the phone call. Warren was with twenty-six-year-old Ritchie Edwards and twenty-two-year-old Paddy Fogarty. Paul Warren had been Gavin’s friend, but Joey Rattigan didn’t know the extent of this friendship. He believed that he was perfectly safe having a few pints with the trio, as he looked upon Warren as a mate. Joey was very much mistaken though, and it was this error that would cost him his life. After Declan Gavin’s murder and the permanent split of the gang, allegiances were still being formed, and it was hard to know who to trust. Friendships were cheap, and a person you thought was on your side one minute could suddenly turn against you the next. Joey Rattigan thought that Paul Warren was on his brother’s side, but in gangland there is no such thing as real friendship, and loyalty is not a commodity that is in rich supply. Unbeknownst to Joey Rattigan, Paul Warren was a turncoat.

  Warren, Edwards and Fogarty had been in the pub since 8.00 p.m. At around midnight Joey Rattigan rang his girlfriend and asked her to come and meet him in the pub. She got a lift in and arrived at about 12.15 a.m., and met her boyfriend and his three drinking companions at the door of the pub. Ritchie Edwards said he would give Rattigan and his girlfriend a lift back to Rattigan’s house. When he dropped the couple there, he told them he was going to Islandbridge to leave Paul Warren off at his flat. However, there is no evidence to prove that Paul Warren was dropped off at Islandbridge. A while later Paddy Fogarty rang Joey Rattigan’s mobile, and said that he and Ritchie Edwards were on their way back to Drimnagh to collect his girlfriend and drop her home. The pair arrived at Cooley Road, picked up Rattigan and his girlfriend, and dropped her safely home. The three men then drove to Ritchie Edwards’ apartment in Inchicore and stayed there for a short time. Gardaí believe that all the complicated lifts was a guise to buy time, and that Paul Warren had arranged for Joey Rattigan to be murdered and was putting a plan in place to have him shot. The exact plan that was put in motion is unclear, but it is known that Rattigan, Fogarty and Edwards left Inchicore shortly before 2.00 a.m., and that at 2.05 a.m. Joey Rattigan got out of Ritchie Edwards’ van at the bottom of
Cooley Road, just metres from his home. As the van pulled away and left, somebody who had clearly been expecting and awaiting Rattigan’s arrival came out of the shadows and approached him. A female neighbour later told Gardaí that she heard a loud bang and looked out her window and saw a male lying injured on the footpath. Joey Rattigan had suffered a single gunshot wound to the head from close range. By the time the neighbour got out of bed and peered through her window, both the gunman and Joey Rattigan’s lift had gone.

  Gardaí received the 999 call informing them about a possible shooting at Cooley Road at 2.18 a.m. on 17 July. Gardaí Carolyn Cullen, John Fitzpatrick, Ciaran Nunan and Kelly Dutton arrived at the scene within minutes, with an ambulance from the Dublin Fire Brigade not far behind. It was clear to members of the emergency services that Joey Rattigan was not in a good way. There was a large gunshot wound to the front of his head, and it looked like a pistol was used to inflict the wound. The injured man was rushed to St James’s Hospital. Senior Gardaí from the ‘G’ district, which encompasses Crumlin and Drimnagh, rushed to the scene. It was the opinion of senior officers present that they would soon be launching a murder inquiry. An incident room was immediately established at Sundrive Road Garda Station, under the command of Detective Superintendent Denis Donegan. The investigation was led on a day-to-day basis by Detective Inspector Tom Mulligan, with Detective Sergeant Joe O’Hara running the incident room on a full-time basis. On the morning of 17 July, approximately thirty Gardaí came together for a case conference to review the evidence. Detective Garda Eamonn Maloney was appointed family liaison officer and he dealt with the Rattigan family. Dinah Rattigan was heartbroken that her son was in a critical condition in hospital, as were other members of the immediate family. Sources say that Brian Rattigan was apoplectic with rage that his younger brother was targeted, and immediately ordered his closest associates to find out exactly what happened – so that revenge could be swift and brutal. It soon became clear that Joey Rattigan was being kept alive by a life support machine. He was brain-dead and had little chance of ever recovering. The Rattigan family had a meeting as Gardaí were holding their case conference, and they decided that Joey’s machine should be switched off. The extended Rattigan family was at Joey’s bedside when he lost consciousness for the final time, and Dr Ryan pronounced him dead. An hour later a relation of Dinah Rattigan identified Joey Rattigan’s body to Garda Alan Kerin, who in turn identified the remains to Dr Marie Cassidy at the Dublin City Morgue. A murder investigation was immediately launched, while a grieving and furious Brian Rattigan launched his own witch-hunt. What had started out as a feud among close friends had now resulted in two murders, and there would be no going back. It was a case of a brother for a brother, and the feud was now a full-blown war.