I spoke to ‘Duck Egg’ and held his hand after he was shot six times, says witness
Murder trial hears that gun victim was slumped in car
A MURDER trial witness has described how she held the hand of Noel ‘Duck Egg’ Kirwan and spoke to him shortly after he was shot outside his home.
Mr Kirwan (62) was sitting in his car at St Ronan’s Drive, Clondalkin, Dublin, on December 22, 2016, when a gunman shot him six times with a Makarov handgun which was later recovered.
Jason Keating (27), of Lower Main Street, Rush, Co Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Kirwan.
Bernadette Roe, the deceased’s partner, told the Special Criminal Court on Tuesday she was in the passenger seat of his Ford Mondeo at the time of the attack and he told her: “I’ve been shot.”
They had just returned from a Christmas lunch in Crumlin with Ms Roe’s daughter.
Ms Roe’s daughter Carolyn Murray told the court yesterday that she lived around the corner from her mother in St Ronan’s Park. She had known Mr Kirwan since she was a child and said when her mother began a relationship with him, he would often call around to her for tea and cake.
Ms Murray said they had planned to have lunch together as a family on December 22. The witness testified that after their meal that day he drove her and her daughter through Inchicore before dropping them off at their house. Ms Murray said she was just in the door when she got a phone call from her mother, who was hysterical on the line.
“I flew into the car and around to my mother’s road,” she said.
The witness said that as she made her way to her mother’s house she saw a small white van at the corner of the estate and it looked like it was contemplating where to go.
“It was at a stand-still, it wasn’t moving,” she added.
Ms Roe had previously told the court that she ran from the car as Mr Kirwan was shot and she saw the gunman jump into the side of a white van as it drove away.
Ms Murray said that she saw Mr Kirwan “slumped” over the gear stick of his car outside her mother’s house and she shouted for someone to get him a blanket. She said she got into the passenger side of his car and held his hand.
“I talked to him to make sure he was OK and I stayed with him until the ambulance arrived,” she said.
John Joyce, a neighbour of Ms Roe, said he was sitting in his front room watching television on the afternoon of December 22 when he noticed a white van parked across the road. He did not see anyone in the driver’s seat.
Mr Joyce testified that he heard “a pop” at 5pm and it sounded like a window shattering. He said he then heard Ms Roe screaming that Noel had been shot.
Mr Joyce said he went over to the car and saw “one small hole” at the side of Noel’s right eye. “I lifted up his head and talked to him and told them to ring an ambulance as he was still alive,” he said.
Detective Garda Alan Curry, a firearms and explosives examiner, testified that he examined a 9mm Makarov handgun which had been recovered in a grass area near St Ronan’s Drive. A silencer was attached and its breach was empty, he said.
In his opening address, prosecution counsel Paul Greene SC told the three-judge court that the murder of Mr Kirwan arose from a “notorious feud” between two criminal factions but the deceased had no connection with either side.
A photo of Mr Kirwan beside his “long-time” friend Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch at the funeral of Eddie Hutch was widely used by newspapers in the lead-up to his death, the non-jury court has heard. The trial continues.