Drug users are fuelling the lethal trade where bloodshed is currency
IT has been four year since one of the most notorious drug-related gangland murders in Ireland.
The abduction and killing of 17-year-old Keane Mulready-woods in my hometown Drogheda, Co Louth, shocked the nation – and rightly so.
He lost his life because he naively got caught up in a feud to control the lucrative cocaine trade in the northeast.
He was only a small player on the fringes of the war but angered enough people like his killer, the serial murderer Robbie Lawlor, who was later gunned down in Belfast.
The tragic case of young Mulready-woods is a direct result of thousands of ordinary people across Ireland buying cocaine every weekend.
Cocaine is still the No1 choice of drug people want in this country and millions of profit is being made in the process.
The suppliers in Drogheda got their coke from the Kinahan crime cartel who are now being hunted by law enforcement agencies across the globe.
Its leaders Christy Snr, Daniel Kinahan and his brother Christy Jnr, are holed up like cornered rats in Dubai.
The Government is hoping to have a deal in place to extradite them and bring them home to face the music as soon as warrants for their arrest on numerous serious criminal charges are issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
This is expected to happen in the next few weeks. The State and gardai have had enough of the Kinahans. People all over Ireland are sick and tired of the dealers like the gang in Drogheda who are peddling their cocaine every weekend in bars, restaurants and nightclubs nationwide.
It seems in Ireland now having your own dealer is just like a doctor or dentist.
Give them a call so you have something to stick up your nose. There is no shortage of them, they are everywhere.
If you spend a day in any district court around the land, you will see ordinary people appearing in court on firsttime offences for possession of drugs.
The cocaine users are brickies, plumbers, factory workers, office staff, fishermen, truck drivers – the list is endless.
The wealthy middle classes are far too clever and rarely get caught because they prefer to snort at private dinners and parties behind closed doors and not in public.
If you don’t have the cash to pay for your supply then God help you.
The debt then starts to spiral and then the hard men come knocking on their door looking for their money.
The €2,000 you owed becomes €5,000 and if you haven’t got it they will go after your parents, your grandparents, your brothers and your sisters.
I know people who have had to borrow up to €20k from the credit union to pay off a family member’s drug debt. The drugs feud may more or less be over in Drogheda but the sale of narcotics continues.
It is not done in the open but people know who to call if they want their weekend cocaine fix.
Gardai are doing the best they can but the whole drugs industry in Ireland is a never ending circle and will continue to be while masses of people still want cocaine.
I never knew Keane Mulready-woods, but I have relatives who know and grew up beside his heartbroken mother Elizabeth, a very decent lady.
She told the trial of Paul Crosby and Gerard Cruise, who both admitted helping to facilitate the child’s murder, that the nightmare of what happened to her son will live with her forever.
Elizabeth said she could still hear him calling her “Mam, Mam” and there was nothing she could do to help him.
Nobody deserves to have their child murdered like she did.
He is buried in a grave not too far from my late father Johnny in a cemetery in Drogheda.
I normally go up to visit once a week to have a chat with my father and then walk around and say a little prayer for the late teenager, whose body was dismembered.
What happened to him was inexcusable and an absolute disgrace.
He was no saint but he was still only a kid caught up in a bloody feud involving many evil adults.
But the people I blame are the people who go out and buy cocaine every weekend.
If there was no cocaine trade, people such as Keane Mulready-woods would be alive today.
My message to them is every time you put coke up your nose think about all of the people who have died along the way so you can have your little moment of pleasure. These hard drugs are not acceptable and the sooner every user is called out the better.