The latest shootings in Dublin underline the volatility of those embroiled in the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud
AT LUNCHTIME on Tuesday, a grandmother in her 50s was at her home in Drimnagh when a handgun was discharged into the house from a passing car. The woman was wounded in the shoulder while nursing her baby grandchild.
Later in the day, at about 10pm, another gun was fired into a house occupied by a couple in their 70s and 80s in the south inner city. It was revenge for the earlier Drimnagh attack.
The two shootings are linked to a feud between rival drug gangs in the Crumlin and Drimnagh areas.
The woman wounded in Drimnagh is related to two much younger men who are involved in one of the gangs. Because of this, her house was seen as fair game to be shot up. Similarly, the elderly couple targeted on Cork Street are related to the leader of the other gang, so their house was shot up in revenge. With 10 men dead, the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud is the bloodiest gangland dispute Ireland has ever seen.
The fact those pulling the triggers are targeting extended families represents a sinister twist. It is a concern for gardaí trying to contain the bloodshed.
Most of the main players in the feud grew up in Drimnagh and Crumlin. They were all between 17 and 20 when the fighting began in the late 1990s. Back then, they were just beginning to dabble in taking and selling drugs.
They began by working with each other in sourcing large quantities of cocaine, at times pooling their resources to get a discount for buying in bulk.
But as the drugs were sold on the streets, so began the scramble to corner as much of the market as possible. The battle lines for the feud were clearly defined when gardaí seized a significant batch of drugs in a hotel in the south inner city in 2000.
Three men, two aged 20 and one aged 18, had hired a room to sort into street deals cocaine and ecstasy valued at £1.25 million. When gardaí arrived at the scene, they arrested two of the men. They were later convicted and jailed. But the third man had left the room and was never charged.
As he escaped conviction, he was accused by some of his associates of being an informer. One gang formed around the main accuser while a rival outfit formed around the accused; the feud was born. The man accused of being an informer was dead within two years. His name and the manner of his murder cannot yet be outlined for legal reasons.
His killing sparked a round of gun murders which has claimed nine more lives.
