A new frontier in gangland SAVAGERY
Psychopathic drug lords at war are behind the horrific murder of Keane, 17
Maguire was left paralysed from the waist down His severed head was found in a burning car
ONCE upon a time in Drogheda, the men who are now embroiled in the increasingly bitter gang war were close friends. It’s a familiar story. A group of young men, making names for themselves in the criminal underworld, became very wealthy, very quickly. But cracks soon began to appear in the Drogheda mob’s foundations, as increasing wealth stoked their greed and egos.
Within the gang before its implosion were Owen Maguire and his associates, members of the Travelling community. To use a well-worn adage, Owen Maguire is ‘well-known’ to detectives. He has a number of convictions including threats to kill and affray.
Other senior gang members were two associates from the Co Louth town, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
The Drogheda gang had strong links to criminals in Coolock and Darndale in north Dublin, through the sale and supply of drugs. And it was the ‘Coolock factor’ that caused the gang to split.
In many ways, if Dublin drug dealers had not got involved in Drogheda’s criminal business, a 17-year-old boy would not now lay slain in the most brutal of circumstances.
Two ‘major players’ from north Dublin convinced the two Drogheda men to split from their friends and associates, the Maguires.
‘There were whisperings in their ears from their north Dublin associates: “You lads should be out on your own. You shouldn’t be working with Travellers, you’re better than them,”’ a senior source explains. ‘Eventually, it sunk in and stuck. The Drogheda men broke up the gang and a war with the Maguires began.’
Prejudice against the Travelling community is alive and well in the criminal underworld, and was undoubtedly a major factor in kicking off this particularly bitter feud. But it is a lot more complex than anti-Traveller sentiment. The two Drogheda men felt they were treated like ‘corner boys’ by the Maguires, a boxing put-down referenced in various social media threats by the now warring factions.
The once-powerful Drogheda gang split, in acrimonious circumstances, at the beginning of summer 2018.
It wasn’t long before the bullets started flying — and Owen Maguire was the very first casualty. On July 4 of that year, Maguire was shot six times at his halting site home in the town. Miraculously, he survived. Coincidently, the suspected triggerman is also behind the barbaric dismemberment of young Keane Mulready-Woods this week.
The blame for that first shooting of the feud and this week’s horror events, which saw the murder of a child, can be laid at the feet of one man, a dangerous and unpredictable individual.
‘Until that man is killed himself or is locked up again, the Drogheda feud will rage on,’ one well-placed source grimly predicts.
Back when Maguire was shot in the stomach by this Dublin criminal and drug dealer, he was also hit in the shoulder and suffered injuries to both legs and wrists in the botched murder attempt, which left a bullet lodged in his spine. He was left paralysed from the waist down.
In a recorded phone conversation that went viral around St Patrick’s
Day last year, a key player in the feud telephoned Maguire and proceeded to ridicule him for being in a wheelchair. The pair then traded insults in the six-minute conversation. The Drogheda-based criminal who made this phone call is also a suspect for murdering young Keane, alongside the well-known Dublin criminal.
In another social media video, widely circulated last year, a beefedup Maguire winked at the camera as he did chin-ups, displaying defiance despite his paralysis.
This is a gang war that is being waged as much online as it is on the streets. It’s social media warfare.
‘Since Owen Maguire was shot, there have been dozens of threat videos on both sides,’ the senior source says. ‘It’s just with the murder of this young lad Keane, these videos and pictures are being shared thousands of times rather than a hundred times. So we’re in a different sphere. It’s all been ratcheted up.
‘All these videos are part of modern life and criminal investigations these days, and that’s not unique to the Drogheda feud. But they are not helping the investigation. In fact, they’re fanning the flames of an already tinder-box situation.’
Some of the videos circulating on Whatsapp, purporting to show the 17-year-old’s dismembered remains, have been discounted as ‘false’ by gardaí. But senior sources acknowledge there is a possibility his killing, or the aftermath, was recorded.
In some respects, the Drogheda feud has until this week been largely ignored by some sections of society. But the depraved butchering of Keane Mulready Woods, which began to emerge on Monday night, has catapulted the horrors of gangland into a different sphere.
Lead investigator, Drogheda chief superintendent Christy Mangan, probably summed it up best: ‘It is important to remember that Keane was a child, a young boy, trying to find his way in life. He has now lost his life and his family.’
The grotesque details of the youngster’s killing are well documented. The boy’s limbs were dumped in a black sports bag in a housing estate in Coolock, north Dublin, where they were discovered by a group of children on Monday night.
The horror surrounding Keane’s murder intensified with the discov
ery of his severed head in a burning car in Ballybough, an inner city area of Dublin, in the early hours of Wednesday. His torso has yet to be recovered.
Before the murder of the 17-yearold, two other men lost their lives in the gangland feud and countless other people were shot, or shot at, while dozens of houses and cars were set alight. Keith Branigan and Richard Carberry were the first and second murders before the seismic developments of Keane’s killing.
‘But no one knows those two lads’ names really, do they?’ says a source. ‘Of course, their families and friends do. But it’s taken this horrible crime for the whole country to suddenly wake up and realise the depths these gangs will go to. Now, there’ll be endless Garda resources to tackle the Drogheda feud. None of that will bring that teenager back though, will it? Or, in fairness, the other two murder victims.’
Branigan was the first fatality of the feud, gunned down in August 2019. The 29-year-old, who had just celebrated his first wedding anniversary, was a close associate of the two Drogheda men who split from the Maguires. Associates of the Maguires carried out the hit. Sources say Branigan, though heavily involved in criminality, was a ‘soft target’, as he was by no means a serious player.
The second feud-related killing claimed the life of Richard Carberry, a married father-of-two, in November 2019. Again, associates of Maguire are linked to this killing but sources stress that other north Dublin criminals were intrinsically involved. Carberry, who was originally from Coolock, was a major drugs trafficker.
Crucially, 39-year-old Carberry was closely connected to the Dublin ‘psychopath’ behind the third, and now infamous, murder of 17-year-old Keane.
‘It all keeps coming back to this particular north Dublin criminal, he’s the driving force behind so much of it,’ says one senior detective. ‘The murder enraged him. He swore revenge. It’s not as simple as that though, of course. Is the savage dismemberment and beheading of a child appropriate retaliation for the shooting dead of a 39-year-old major criminal figure? Of course not. But there are many other factors in the mix.’
Control of the drugs trade is what’s at the heart of this feud. It is not just confined to the streets of Drogheda or Co Louth as the warring gangs also control the drugs market in Co Meath and even parts of north Dublin.
‘Never forget, this is primarily about money,’ says our source. ‘When they go to war, as they have in Drogheda, it’s about showing power and strength — that’s what leads to the retaliation shootings and killings. But at the end of the day, for all of these lads, money is king.’
But the consequence of abducting, mutilating and dismembering a 17-year-old means that ‘business as usual’ for these feuding Drogheda criminals has now been firmly put on hold. Garda pressure at present is immense, meaning they cannot go about their drug dealing operations with any ease.
Young Keane was himself involved in serious criminality, working for both sides involved in the feud. He had already been convicted of intimidating a local family, as well as other less serious offences. Yet his tender age cannot be overlooked, nor can the barbaric nature of his killing.
The fabric of gangland Ireland has been forever changed with his murder. A community is braced for further bloodshed. And one family will never be the same again.
Keane was found guilty of intimidation