Back in the old days, it was a one-for-one ethos. You kill one of mine, I kill one of yours. That’s gone now. The Kinahans will wipe the Hutches out.
GARETH HUTCH, A 35-year-old taxi driver and father-of-one was the latest to lose his life in a feud that shows no sign of stopping.
Shot dead in the car park of the Avondale House flat complex in Dublin’s north inner city, Hutch was just one name on a long hit list of Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch’s family and friends.
Since September last year, the Kinahan gang have taken out his nephew Gary (shot in Spain), his brother Eddie, his longtime pal Noel Duggan, a family associate (and dissident) Michael Barr and now a second nephew, Gareth.
They also mistakenly murdered 24-year-old Martin O’Rourke on Sheriff Street in an attempt to kill Keith Murtagh, another associate of the Hutches. He sustained minor injuries last week when someone shot through the window of a house in Cherry Orchard.
‘A war of attrition’
The Kinahan cartel are on a mission, it appears, since gang member David Byrne was killed in a Hutch-orchestrated attack at the Regency Hotel.
“They’re calling it a feud but it seems to me more like a war of attrition at the moment,” Dublin councillor Gary Gannon said yesterday. “One side are essentially trying to exterminate the other.”
Sources say the gang are intent on “wiping out” the Hutch family – and anyone who associates with them.
One is a family, the other’s a business. They can keep giving money or drugs to anyone who owes them money or wants to get “made” in the gang.
It’s only a matter of time until another Hutch is killed or they [the Hutch gang] go off the leash.
Retaliation
And the possibility the Hutch clan will “go off the leash” is a serious concern for gardaí.
With three members of the family murdered, as well as a close friend of The Monk, retaliation is expected – and it could come soon. Indeed, it was reported yesterday that one family member pursued the two gunmen who shot Gareth as they ran from the Avondale House complex.
The murder of Michael Barr at the Sunset House pub has also added a new dimension to the feud – as now dissidents might get involved.
The brazen attack on the Regency hotel, costumes and all, demonstrates what the Hutches are capable of. It is suspected the AK-47s carried by the two shooters dressed like armed gardaí were borrowed from dissidents in the north.
The implication is that Gerry is very much keeping his gang from retaliation, but when they do, it’ll be massive.
Whether we call it a gangland feud or an attempt to “exterminate” one of the warring families, once again, it is a waiting game.
- With reporting by Paul Hosford and Daragh Brophy.
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