Court sketch: Anybody who was in the round hall of Dublin's Four Courts just before 7 p.m. on Saturday received a glimpse of the hatred which has fuelled the vicious feud in Limerick city in recent years.
After the five men were taken from the court, having been convicted on four counts - two for abduction, and one for murder and attempted murder - they were held in an underground cell. Before they were led out of the building to a waiting prison van, family and supporters of the Keane group were coralled into the locked porch of the Four Courts. Gardaí were anxious that the prisoners would have no contact with the crowd.
The five, all chained to prison officers, were then taken across the hall, in front of dozens of gardaí.
Dessie Dundon led the way. He had discarded his shirt in favour of a sleeveless vest and spat on the ground of the courthouse close to where the detectives stood. David Stanners, a father of five, turned to gardaí and shouted: "I hope you're happy now boys."
Anthony McCarthy was last. "This ain't going to stop the shooting, you know."
Minutes earlier, McCarthy, just after he had been sentenced to life for Keane's murder, jumped up and stood on the defendants' bench in the court. He was having difficulty making eye contact with Owen Treacy and Keane's widow, Sophie.
As prison officers and gardaí told him to sit back down, he stared at Treacy and repeated time and again: "For every action there's a reaction."
The most vocal outburst was reserved for Sophie Keane. Judge Paul Carney asked her to take the witness box so he could hear what effect her husband's murder has had on her and her two sons, aged 13 and 15. "Our lives have stopped moving forward," she said. "These men are animals. They took my husband's life for no reason, he never did anybody any harm."
She was then asked what Kieran Keane, a drug dealer, had worked at. Before she said anything, the five men shouted: "Selling drugs, killing people. He killed the McCarthys, he killed Eddie Ryan." After the shouting stopped, she told the court her husband "sold coal", to laughs from the defendants' bench.
Outside she refused to talk to the media. When Owen Treacy was asked by The Irish Times how he felt now that the trial was over, he said: "They got what they deserved."
