CHRISTMAS HORROR

Devastated daughter slams Kinahan quartermaster for ‘destroying’ family as role in innocent grandad’s murder revealed

the role of 57-year-old Brady, once the mob group’s head of logistics in Ireland, in Mr Kirwan’s killing was outlined for the first time

• Published: 15:34, 26 Feb 2024
• Updated: 20:00, 26 Feb 2024

• Published: Invalid Date,

THE daughter of murdered Noel “Duck Egg” Kirwan told the Kinahan cartel’s quartermaster: “You have destroyed our peace, our past and our future.”

Declan Brady was back before the Special Criminal Court as he sat stoney-eyed when the victim impact statement was delivered on behalf of brave Donna Kirwan.

The thug refused to look into the body of the court where she and brother Kristopher were sitting, instead looking directly ahead.

During proceedings, the role of 57-year-old Brady, once the mob group’s head of logistics in Ireland, in Mr Kirwan’s killing was outlined for the first time.

Already locked up serving lengthy sentences for possession of firearms on behalf of the cartel and money laundering, the former haulage driver pleaded guilty to facilitating a criminal organisation to murder grandfather Kirwan last month.

Mr Kirwan, 62, was shot multiple times in his Ford Mondeo car after pulling into his driveway at St Ronan’s Drive in Clondalkin, west Dublin, on December 22, 2016.

He had just arrived back at his home with his partner Bernadette Roe, who was not injured, following a family meal.

In the victim impact statement read out on her behalf, Donna told Brady: “One day your sentence will be up and you will get to walk free but we will never have that because we live in torment and can’t erase the images we have in our heads.

“We can erase the anger, the hurt and the constant pain but we can’t avoid the constant reminders everywhere we go but one day this will be old news to you. If only we could swap places with you.

“You have destroyed our peace, our past and our future. You hadn’t got the intelligence between the lot of you to go and do your homework correctly — if you did you would come to realise that our dad was a completely innocent man.

“How does it feel knowing you’re going to prison for killing an innocent man?

“You robbed us of a life with our dad — he was all we had as our mam had passed away a couple of years earlier from cancer.”

She also dwelled on the lengths the Kinahan cartel had gone to to kill Mr Kirwan.

She said: “You had a tracking device put onto his car and I and my little boy were in that car while he drove around shopping for Christmas presents.

“I often wonder, would you have had him killed while we were in the car? How did you decide what time would be best to do it? These are our thoughts everyday. We don’t get to switch off when we want.”

And Donna spoke about the devastating impact of the murder on her own life.

She added: “I’ve suffered greatly with my mental health since that day and I absolutely hate that I have allowed you to do this to me. I think you have taken enough.

“Our dad was an amazing father. He worked two jobs to make sure we never went without. He always drummed it into us to work for everything we wanted. He couldn’t bear the thought of us going near drugs or going down the wrong path.

“None of us did. We all have great jobs and will make sure our children go on to do the same.

“But because of you our dad will never get to see his grandchildren grow up — something he was really looking forward to after working so hard all his life.

“You might not have pulled the trigger but his murder wouldn’t have happened without you.

“You have destroyed our lives — there won’t be any justice served in this courtroom because nothing is going to bring our dad back, no sentence will be good enough for you.”

You might not have pulled the trigger but his murder wouldn’t have happened without you.”

Donna also asked what Brady had stood to gain from her dad’s death, and said: “Never did I think for one second that myself and my brother would be sitting here seven years later watching you walk in and out of your headquarters where you planned my father’s murder.

“While the other residents of the apartment block you so calmly walked in and out of were going to work everyday, you were planning to kill a 62-year-old innocent grandfather.

“You did this for weeks and you had plenty of time to change your mind but you chose not to. Can I ask you what did you gain from this? What did they give you? Was it worth it?”

Gardai believe that the sole reason Mr Kirwan was targeted by the Kinahan gang was because he was pictured standing beside Gerry “The Monk” Hutch at Eddie Hutch’s funeral in February 2016.

After the brutal murder of Mr Kirwan, gardai seized his car and found a tracker fitted to the undercarriage with a magnet.

It had been brought from Leeds to Ireland in October 2016 and later to the address of the senior Kinahan lieutenant in Crumlin, south Dublin.

It was then moved to apartment 302 at the Beacon South Quarter apartment complex in Sandyford.

TRACKER PING

Detective Superintendent Mark O’Neill told the court that in the early hours of November 8, 2016, the tracker was in that area at 1.21am before it was moved to St Ronan’s Drive, Mr Kirwan’s address, and was pinging from that location at 2.43am.

Brady and the senior gang member were seen on CCTV leaving the apartment complex at the time the device was moved.

It was fitted on the BMW X5 Mr Kirwan was driving and its data matched trips his family said he had taken in the following weeks, including one to Gorey in Wexford.

The tracker was controlled from a laptop at the Sandyford apartment by the senior Kinahan member. Every four hours the tracker would communicate the car’s location, however the controller could command that request more frequently if he chose.

Mr Kirwan traded in his BMW X5 on December 13 for the Ford Mondeo at a dealership in Clondalkin.

With the tracker still on the jeep, Brady was identified as driving a car in the vicinity of the business on December 14 and 15, 2016.

On those journeys another man, suspected to be athe senior gang figure, was in the rear passenger seat of the vehicle.

The BMW was moved to an auction business in Naas before another member of the gang retrieved it.

It was then put on Mr Kirwan’s Mondeo in the early hours of December 21, ahead of his murder a day later.

Gardai raided the Beacon South Quarter apartment complex in Sandyford in January 2017. Brady’s DNA was found on a toothbrush in the flat.

‘MODEL PRISONER’

The senior Kinahan figure’s DNA was on the laptop recovered there — the one used to control the tracker — and its bag.

The instructions for the device fitted to Mr Kirwan’s car were found there behind a mirror.

In his defence, Michael O’Higgins SC, said that his client — a “model prisoner” in Mountjoy — gave logistical support and his role was to chauffeur the senior gang member.

It was also agreed that while Brady might not have been aware of the tracker’s specific use, he would have been able to work out that it was for a serious offence

The sentencing was adjourned until April 30, by which date a probation report will be available for when Mr Justice Tony Hunt sentences Brady.

DAY OF MURDER

DONNA told the court in 2018 that December 22 started off as a normal day for the family but it turned into their “worst nightmare”.

Noel’s partner, Bernadette Roe, was in the passenger seat of Mr Kirwan’s car at the time of the attack.

They had just returned from a Christmas lunch in a restaurant in Crumlin with Ms Roe’s daughter.

Ms Kirwan said she was expecting a call from her father that day but instead she received a call from Bernadette’s daughter, Carolyn, who sounded in a state of panic and told her she had to come straight out to Clondalkin as Noel had been shot.

She said: “I just remember screaming for somebody to help and a man who works on my floor came running towards me, he grabbed his keys and we ran to his car.

“I felt like we were in traffic for hours because everyone was out doing their Christmas shopping. I rang Carolyn on the way and said they were working on him in the ambulance.

Ms Kirwan said she jumped from the car when they arrived at the scene and began screaming asking people to tell her dad that she was there.

She said: “I asked them where my dad was and Carolyn said ‘I’m so sorry Donna he didn’t make it’. I couldn’t take in what she was saying to me.

“I begged the police men to let me see him but they said they were sorry that they couldn’t.”

The court heard: “I remember standing there later on watching his body being removed from the scene.

“The pain I felt that night will never leave me. I kept asking people over and over is this really happening, is this real.”

As part of the investigation into the grandfather’s killing, Gardai from Ronanstown and Lucan Garda stations followed 650 lines of enquiry.

The investigation team was also supported by specialist interviewers from the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

A Garda spokesperson said: “The investigation was a team effort.

“The family liaison officer Garda Colin Sullivan deserves special recognition as he built up a strong relationship with the family that was very beneficial for the investigation team and hopefully for the family also.”

Before Brady’s guilty plea, cartel foot soldier Jason Keating, 32, received a ten year sentence in 2018 for playing a role of “real significance” in the killing.

Martin Aylmer, 37, received an eight year and four month prison sentence for helping the gang source trackers in the murder.

Brady also found himself before the court again after he was convicted of running the cartel’s arms depot at the Greenogue Industrial site during the height of the Kinahan and Hutch feud.