When Gary Hutch returned to live in southern Spain around this time last year in the belief that his family had bought his safety, the plan to kill him in September was already taking shape.
Twelve months on and 10 men are dead including Eddie Hutch, targeted simply because he was Gary Hutch's uncle, Martin O'Rourke "shot by mistake" and now Trevor O'Neill; another man with no connection to the feud but who has paid with his life anyway.
From Comeragh Road, Drimnagh, Dublin, the 40 year old was shot dead in front of his wife and three children in a case of mistaken identity in Majorca.
A Dublin City Council worker, he leaves behind children aged four, six and 11.
Garda sources described the attack as “appalling” and expressed concern that it indicates the feud is continuing to spiral out of control.
They are also fearful that even if the most dominant personalities on both sides of the feud were to somehow agree a truce, not all of their associates would agree.
“A lot of people are dead now, there’s a lot of hatred and some [gang members] will be much more determined than the others to keep going,” said one Garda source.
A cause for concern within the Garda is the appetite for violence shown by the Kinahan gang and its ability to attack the Hutch faction so regularly.
“We’ve seen several of these murders in the north inner city where many of that side are based,” said one Garda officer.
“And [the Kinahans] are willing and able to get people to do shootings there. But we’ve also had a murder in Meath and now two in Spain; one on an island where a group on holidays were tracked down and watched.”
Peace arrangement
Other sources said even if the leader of the Kinahan gang, the veteran Dublin drug dealer
Christy Kinahan
, who is based in southern Spain, were somehow willing to come to a peace arrangement with the Hutchs, some of the younger men working for him in Dublin are “highly unlikely” to agree.
“There’s a group of them determined to keep going for more revenge and more misery; they are absolutely determined to keep hitting the Hutch people.”
Gardaí point out that in the eight murders directly related to the feud since last September and two other killings linked to it; nine have been carried out by the Kinahans.
The dispute is more of an onslaught on the Hutch family than a feud between two gangs.
The murders by the Kinahans have been well-planned and based on detailed local knowledge and intelligence about the movements of their targets, with apparently no shortage of money to pay willing gunmen.
Gardaí say despite the public outcry and additional policing resources having been committed to combat the violence, people who are simply linked to those directly involved in crime are still being targeted.
While O’Neill was mistaken for a member of the Hutch family, the intended target was not a gangland figure.
Gardaí believe the Kinahan gang is clearly trying to undermine the safety of all of the Hutch family and anyone close to them by demonstrating they “would and could” strike anywhere.
And with a peace deal having been reneged on with the shooting dead of Gary Hutch last September, gardaí say it is impossible to see any end to the violence.
“You may reach a stage where it will only end when one side kills a really senior figure on the other side and the remaining people no longer have any appetite to hit back,” said one source.
"But we've seen it before in parts of Dublin and in Limerick. Some of those cycles of shootings have gone on for 10 years; that's the reality."
Intimidated and pressurised
However, the same source said the Hutch family had been intimidated and pressurised by the Kinahans and paid them a large sum of money last year to spare the life of Gary Hutch, but he was killed anyway.
He was accused by the Kinahans of supplying information to the police and he also tried to kill one of the Kinahan family in Spain.
A former member of the Kinahan gang himself, Gary Hutch had fled Spain and only returned last year when he believed senior members of his family had reached an agreement with the Kinahans to spare his life. But not long after his return he was shot dead near Marbella on the Costa del Sol on September 24th, 2015, the violence unfolding at an alarming rate since then.
