Life and times of John Daly:When John Daly was released from prison in August the fact that somebody would try to kill him was beyond doubt. It was just a question of when and where.
The answers came yesterday morning. Daly was gunned down just before 2am as he sat in the front passenger seat of a taxi in his native Finglas. The 27-year-old was shot five times.
His place in crime's hall of infamy was secured in May when he decided to ring RTÉ's Livelineprogramme from his cell in the maximum security Portlaoise Prison using a smuggled mobile phone.
He rang to take issue with a crime reporter who had written a piece claiming Daly and another Finglas man were embroiled in a gangland dispute. "I can't stay long, I can't stay long, I'm ringing from my cell," he said.
A prison officer then rushed into his cell and grabbed the phone. A major crackdown followed.
Portlaoise and other prisons were searched. Hundreds of telephones, chargers and Sim cards were found as well as plasma televisions, drugs and even two pet budgies.
Criminals from whom the items were seized were seething. Daly was a marked man.
He was transferred from Portlaoise to Cork Prison, from where he was released.
He had since been living in Finglas and had also spent time with criminal associates in Spain.
The sentence he had just finished serving was a nine-year term for armed robbery.
He robbed a service station on the Finglas Road in Dublin with a sawn-off shotgun on January 24th, 1999.
One shot was fired through the security hatch. He was arrested a few days later when the shotgun was found hidden in a wardrobe at his home. He was charged and granted bail.
A week later he went back to the same service station and robbed it again.
He was arrested the following November when £3,850, covered in the red dye of a cash security box, was found in a house where he was staying.
He was given a nine-year sentence but was released on licence in July 2002.
While on release he was suspected of involvement in serious organised criminality, including armed robbery and drug dealing.
He also threatened to kill a number of gardaí and attack their families.
His release was revoked in October 2003 but not before he tried to murder Liam McAllister, a nephew of Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams.
In the incident, which occurred in a secluded spot in Scribblestown, Finglas, Daly pulled a gun and shot McAllister. The victim raised his hand to protect his face and Daly's shot blew a portion of McAllister's hand off; he passed out with pain.
Daly believed he had shot McAllister in the head and left him for dead. However, the victim survived and made a statement to gardaí incriminating Daly.
At about the same time in 2003 Daly intimidated a key witness in a murder trial into withdrawing her statement against Finglas criminal Declan Curran, now deceased, for the murder of 33-year-old William O'Regan. O'Regan was shot dead in July 2003 in Ballymun as part of a local feud.
While in prison Daly is believed to have continued his criminal activities via mobile phone.
He became friendly with Christie Keane, the leader of one of Limerick's feuding gangs.
Daly was also associated with Martin "Marlo" Hyland, the major criminal shot dead in Finglas last November.
He was closely associated with a number of men implicated in the shooting dead of Donna Cleary at a house party in Coolock 18 months ago.