Limerick feud

While control of the drug trade is a factor in the feud, according to Garda Superintendent Gerry Mahon, the primary driving force is "absolute hatred by each side for the other".

While there are a number of various and complex reasons for feuding and crime in the city, part of the problems arise from the deprivation experienced in some of the suburban local authority housing estates built by Limerick Corporation from the mid-to late 20th century.

[4] On the afternoon of Friday, 10 November 2000, an attempt was made on the life of Christy Keane as he was collecting his son from school at Ignatious Rice College on Shelbourne Avenue.

As well as dozens of other serious incidents over the following year, there were at least 30 petrol bomb and gun attacks on the home of Eddie Ryan's brother, John.

[7] Seven days after the Ryans were allegedly abducted, Keiran Keane and his nephew Owen Treacy went to a house in the Garryowen area of the city to meet Dessie Dundon.

After a failed attempt by the captors to also lure brothers Keiran and Phillip Collopy in to a 'trap',[7] Keane and Treacy were eventually brought to a country lane in Drumbanna, five miles outside the city.

Subsequent Garda investigations revealed they had never been kidnapped and spent the week at the home of an associate in Thurles, County Tipperary.

[18] Two days later as Gardaí searched waste ground looking for the gun used in Moloney's murder, they found the body of James Cronin (aged 20) buried in a shallow grave near Ballinacurra Weston.

[19][20] A killing that caused a public outrage in the city was the murder of Shane Geoghegan (aged 28), who was shot dead in a case of mistaken identity near his home in Dooradoyle in November 2008.

The intended target was Shane's neighbour, John McNamara, an ally of the Keane-Collopys who had survived three previous attempts on his life.

[28][29] The McCarthy-Dundons are currently led by a cousin of the Dundon brothers, who returned to Limerick from England in 2011, where he had served half an eleven-year sentence for a firearms offence.

[31] Ryan Jr. was released in July 2014 after a High Court Judge ruled that he was entitled to one-third remission of his original six-year sentence.