WHEN WAYNE Doherty was shot dead he was given a funeral with paramilitary trappings. His coffin was draped in the Tricolour and a large group of men, all dressed identically in white shirts and black ties, led the funeral cortege.
Word quickly spread that some of Doherty’s associates were IRA figures, more recently associated with the so-called Real IRA.
By the time Doherty (32), an accomplished boxer and father of two, was being buried, his killer Robert Egan had fled the State.
He clearly knew the connections of the man he had killed, albeit unintentionally, and did not wait around for retribution. He first fled to the North and then to Turkey, a country with which the Republic has no extradition treaty.
In his absence, men from the Real IRA and, the Egan family believes, the INLA waged a campaign of violence and intimidation against the killer’s family. Five times, cars and two vans owned by the family were destroyed in petrol bomb attacks outside their Mulhuddart home. An attempt was also made to burn down the family’s Centrepoint newsagents shop at Ladyswell Road, Parlickstown.
The most serious attack on the family occurred in October 2009 when brother Jason (23) was shot dead as he locked up the family shop – shot seven times in the back.
The Real IRA later admitted responsibility for the attack.
Another two of the Egan sons – Anthony (25) and Lee (20) - went into hiding on the Continent after they were threatened by the Real IRA over their brother’s involvement in Doherty’s killing.
Robert Egan's mother Carmen told The Irish Times18 months ago that the men issuing the threats said they would kill her children, including her daughter. A widow, she said that the campaign against her family had continued after Robert had returned and surrendered himself to gardaí.
“They killed my son Jason so now they’re going on to the next brothers. If they take the next brother, are they going to go on to the next brother? When is it going to stop?”
This week Doherty’s widow Karen spoke of her grief.
“Wayne was my life, my best friend, my soul mate and he will never be replaced.” She said her two children Joanne (7) and Christopher (13) had been left without a dad.
Her words captured the heartache of a family left shattered and who have no involvement in the violence that followed her husband’s death.
During Egan’s trial, the Central Criminal Court heard that one of the witnesses had been told by the paramilitaries that he must give evidence in the case.
Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy referred to an “evil background” to the case linked to a splinter group of the IRA. He suggested the consequences of Egan’s actions may revisit him after his release from prison.
For now, Robert Egan’s legal team has requested that he does not serve his sentence in Mountjoy Prison because of the threat to him from some of the prisoners there.
