Gardai fear that the situation in Limerick, in particular, will further worsen later this year when key figures from both the main gangs are released. Both have sworn vengeance against each other and their families.
Gardai also believe that Russell was murdered because he was suspected of murdering Gerard Byrne, 25, of Ferryman's Crossing, Dublin, who was shot dead in the IFSC on December 13, 2006. A €50,000 contract is believed to have been put on Russell's head. The north inner city feud has been underway for over two years since it emerged that a previous gang leader, Christy Griffin, had been raping and sexually abusing his partner's daughter from since she was only eight years of age. When Griffin was finally jailed for life in April last year the woman, from the Summerhill area, assumed control of his gang. She is thought to be the only woman gang leader in Ireland and is described by gardai as "highly dangerous".
Although it was initially thought last week that there had only been two murders resulting from the feud prior to Russell's killing, it has since emerged that a fourth murder, that of Paul Kelly, 26, who was shot dead outside his apartment off the Malahide Road in April last year, also stemmed from the feud. The other man to die was Stephen Ledden, 28, shot dead in Oriel Street in the financial services district in December 2006.The feud is showing no signs of abating, gardai say. It is one of nine or 10 current feuds between drugs gangs in Ireland, all of whom continue to step up their armed capacity. The Dublin gangs also continue to attempt to develop a bomb capacity. Gardai say that the two bomb makers in Dublin are showing signs of improvement and that it is "only a matter of time" before some one is killed. This followed the discovery by gardai of components for up to 20 pipe bombs in a car parked in Greenhills Road in Tallaght. The feud in Crumlin-Drimnagh, which has been going on for eight years, is now the longest and bloodiest in Dublin and has been made worse by the entry of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) into the fighting on the side of one of the gangs. The INLA is also believed to be behind the introduction of the pipe bombs. The republican terror-turned-drugs gang was once capable of constructing highly sophisticated bombs and used a tilt-switch under-car device to kill the Conservative Party spokesman on Northern Ireland, Airey Neave, in the underground car park of the House of Commons in 1979. The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that since leading Dublin and Limerick gangsters have become acquainted in prison, they have formed mutual-assistance pacts where the sides supply each other with weapons and even contract killings out to each other while also assisting in drug trafficking. There is now understood to be an alliance involving the Dundon-McCarthy gang from Limerick, the south inner Dublin gang allegedly led by "Fat" Freddie Thompson, the INLA and figures from Finglas. This is probably the largest crime organisation in Ireland at present. This has exacerbated the situation in Dublin where the leader of the opposing gang, led by a man currently in Mountjoy Prison, still has use of mobile phones in the jail and is understood to be sending out instructions for people to be killed. This gang has formed an alliance with the Dundon-McCarthy's rivals in Limerick, the Keane-Collopys. Both these two "super gangs" are, however, inherently unstable. The groups forming the alliances all have their own personal agendas and vendettas underway. The INLA has been involved in what is effectively side-bar feuding in Dublin since one of its leading members, Patrick Campbell, was killed in a melee at an industrial park in Ballymount in 1999.
At least four men have been shot dead since Ballymount and gardai in Dublin say the INLA is still intent on settling scores over the matter. As some of their targets have been associates of the gang opposed to Freddie Thompson's gang, this has helped continue the eight-year-old Drimnagh-Crumlin feud. While the feuds in the north and south inner city areas remain active, garda action has, temporarily at least, stopped the blood feuding in the Finglas-Blanchardstown areas which claimed over 10 lives in the past three years. Garda arrests are the main reason for the reduction in violence in this area which culminated in the murder of former gang leader, Martin "Marlo" Hyland in December 2006. Much of the violence in the Finglas-Blanchardstown area was a result of the break-up of the once powerful "Westies" gang, whose original leaders, Shane Coates and Stephen Sugg, were assassinated in Spain in late 2003. The situation in Limerick remains as volatile as ever. A man in his forties had a narrow escape on Wednesday afternoon when he was the subject of a drive-by shooting, now the favoured form of assassination in the city. He was outside his house in Hyde Avenue, Ballinacurra West, on when the attack took place at around 4pm. Local sources said the attack was linked to one of about seven feuds, though others say that these are now not so much feuds as acts to assert the dominance of the Dundon-McCarthy gang which prompt occasional acts of retaliation.
Some of the families formerly at the forefront of the feuding with the Dundon-McCarthys are now said to be struggling to hold on in the city and their families are being subjected to daily acts of intimidation.
One of the Dundon-McCarthy allied gangs in Moyross has recruited up to a 100 teenagers who cause havoc in the area and have access to weapons.
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