WHEN A burst of gunfire ended the life of Anthony Russell in an Artane pub in north Dublin last Friday night, his links to a feud in the north inner city quickly emerged as the likely motive.
Russell was believed to have shot dead criminal Gerard "Batt" Byrne just before Christmas 2006.
Byrne (25), of Ferryman's Crossing, Dublin 1, was killed on the street in the IFSC area on December 13th.
Exactly two weeks later, Stephen Ledden (28) was shot in the head in a house at Oriel Street, Dublin 1.
The two killings were tit-for-tat murders in a feud based in Sheriff Street, Dublin 1.
It began when Christy Griffin (38), the leader of a major criminal gang from the area, was accused of rape by his stepdaughter. Griffin, from Canon Lillis Avenue, Dublin 1, was convicted of rape last year and is currently serving life. When news of the allegation broke four years ago, Griffin's gang split in two. One faction remained loyal to him while the other believed the rape assertions and were appalled by them.
Both sides began attacking each other. Fist fights in local pubs escalated to a near fatal stabbing followed by an almost innumerable round of drive-by shootings and attacks involving hand grenades and pipe bombs.
As Griffin's rape trial approached at the end of 2006 tensions ratcheted and Gerard Byrne and Stephen Ledden were killed. The Emergency Response Unit was drafted into Dublin 1 and a saturation policing operation remained in place for more than a year. In January 2007 Griffin's rape trial was moved from the Four Courts in the centre of Dublin to Cloverhill courthouse in the west of the city for security reasons. Airport-style security, with metal detectors, was put in place.
To add to an already difficult situation, Griffin's brother, Colm, was shot dead in 2005 by gardaí during a botched post office raid in Lusk, Co Dublin. His inquest went ahead last October at a time when feud tensions were running high.
Intelligence emerged that Christy Griffin's associates were so enraged by his jailing and the Garda's killing of Colm Griffin that they were offering money to any criminal who would shoot a member of An Garda Síochána in revenge.
Because of this Garda witnesses at Colm Griffin's inquest were allowed give their evidence from behind a curtain.
It was hoped with the passage of some time cooler heads might prevail. Anthony Russell's murder at the weekend has put paid to that optimism. Covert and high-visibility armed patrols are to be stepped up around Sheriff Street and the other residential areas close to the IFSC where many of those involved live. The sight of armed gardaí patrolling the streets around Ireland's financial services district will do little for the country's image in the eyes of visiting international business people.
But while the media's attention is once again focused on Dublin's Sheriff Street, similarly entrenched gangland feuding has taken hold elsewhere.
In Limerick, for example, 10 men have been shot dead in that city's feud since 2000. In Crumlin and Drimnagh, Dublin, feuding between two gangs has also cost 10 lives since 2001. In Blanchardstown, Dublin, the violence that characterised the implosion of the once all-powerful Westies gang has seen seven men killed since 2000. In Finglas, Dublin, five people have paid with their lives as the major drugs gang led by Martin "Marlo" Hyland collapsed on itself in 2006.
Factions in Sligo town have also clashed in recent years with two men dying in gun attacks. If the murder of Veronica Guerin was the main event in organised crime in the 1990s, the emergence of gang-based gun feuding is the most significant development in the current decade.