Revenge is in the air after the murder of a west Dublin gang member in a crowded pub, reports Suzanne Breen.
For a hard man, Bernard Sugg didn't drink a lot. He was sipping soda water when two gunmen, dressed in black with balaclavas, burst into the Brookwood Inn in west Dublin.
It had all the hallmarks of a professional hit. They knew exactly where to go. Sugg (23) and other members of the Westies gang always sat in the same spot - just to the left, inside the door. The bar is regularly packed on Sunday nights. There was pandemonium as screaming customers fled for cover.
But the gunmen were interested only in Sugg. They fired nine bullets - two hit him in the chest. He crawled along the floor in an attempt to escape but he was already fatally wounded. He died in hospital an hour later.
About 150 mourners attended his funeral on Thursday.
Revenge is said to be imminent. "It's going to be like world war three around here," says an excited teenager.
Some of the kids on the Corduff Estate, where Sugg lived and died, talk of little but the Westies and rival gangs. Hanging around the murder scene, watching gardaí and forensic experts come and go, they recount alleged gangland activities with the pace of a Hollywood movie script.
"A Westie was badly hurt in a big shoot-out with the guards in Cavan a few months ago but he got away and a vet removed the bullets," a 12-year-old boy confides. A 16-year-old tells of lorry-loads of cigarettes and designer goods hijacked by the Westies at gunpoint.
And then there is the episode in May when the Westies stole rare birds from a Co Meath zoo. Cocky the cockatoo was later found in Kinnegad, Co Westmeath, imitating the noises of a local man smoking outside his house.
The Westies call themselves after the Irish-American gang which terrorised Hell's Kitchen, New York, in the 1970s and 1980s. They sprang up in west Dublin about five years ago. They're all in their 20s and early 30s. As teenagers, they were car thieves along the M50.
It is believed they were responsible for the drugs-linked murder of Paul Ryan from Raheny in Dublin in April. He was found in a Co Offaly field shot in the head, his hands tied behind his back.
The Westies are active as far north as Navan. They are involved in supplying heroin and other drugs in west and north Dublin. They are known for their casual brutality. Garda sources also say they're "not the smartest on the block".
Other criminals are uneasy about the unpredictable, vicious nature of their violence. Drug users who owe them money are often targeted. They have slashed their victims with carpet knives. One man required 80 stitches to his face.
Cigarettes were stubbed out on the breasts of a mother who couldn't pay for her heroin. A man in a wheelchair who owed money was beaten up. A Garda source says Sugg was a typical Westie: "violent, monosyllabic, thick, and full of himself".
He was a bully about everything, the source continues, even ensuring there was no choice in the Brookwood Inn over television channels: "it was tuned into MTV and nobody was allowed to change it".
Like many Westies, he was into body-building and used steroids. Tensions were high between Sugg and a north Dublin gang which is involved in a turf war with the Westies. They reached breaking-point when Sugg, who also worked as a doorman in the Brookwood Inn, refused entry to rival gang members twice last week.
"This gang are the leading suspects in the murder investigation," says a Garda source. "But they aren't the only ones. Sugg had so many enemies, we have plenty of unofficial theories." He is not hopeful the murder investigation will lead to convictions.
Even on a bright, sunny day, the Corduff Estate is a depressing place. There is a two-storey shopping centre - though that's something of a misnomer because so many units are closed. A newsagent, chippie, and chemist are open. The post office is the busiest place, as people queue to collect their benefits.
Next door to the shopping centre is the Brookwood Inn. It looks like it has been painted this summer but there's graffiti on the wall near a bullet hole. Inside, the worn pine chairs and tables are neatly arranged.
A local man says he stopped drinking in the pub because the Westies were always there. "There would be a big crowd of them. They were very intimidating. The language out of them was terrible. I wasn't comfortable. I just started buying a few cans from the off-licence and sitting at home instead. That way, there's no chance of trouble."
"Ordinary people stay well clear of the Westies," says another man. "If you cross them over the smallest thing, you end up in A & E."
Sugg lived around the corner from the pub in an ordinary house. Other gang members live in more comfortable, but generally not luxurious, surroundings.
Residents say some shops are forced to pay the Westies €200 a week. The Criminal Assets Bureau ordered one gang member, who has since fled the country, to pay €150,000. He was assessed for the tax proceeds of his criminal activity for nine months in 1998-99 - he had spent the first three months in jail.
It's not just prison the Westies have to contend with. Sugg's murder isn't the first act of violence directed against the gang. Sugg was shot in the stomach last year. A leading member fled to the Continent in January after a gun attack on his home. This man, who was extremely close to Sugg, returned home for his funeral. Garda sources say he is intent on retaliation.
"He won't let this one go. Revenge is as certain as night follows day." The Westies stole a substantial cache of weapons from a registered firearms dealer in Balbriggan, Co Dublin in May, while they held him and his family hostage. After a shoot-out with gardaí in Virginia, Co Cavan a week later, 21 weapons - including handguns, rifles and sawn-off shotguns - and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition were recovered.
Even before Sugg's death, the Westies were increasingly seen as a dwindling force due to Garda activities and hostility from rival gangs. A leading figure, known as "The Rat", is still on the run in the Costa del Sol.
A Garda source says the Westies have about two dozen "hardcore" members. "They are big fish in west Dublin but overall they're not that huge. Apart from their families, there is no support for them in their own areas. The community didn't turn out for Sugg's funeral."
Local hatred for the Westies isn't just Garda propaganda. Many people in Corduff haven't a good word to say about them.
"I'll shed no tears over him," says one man after Sugg's murder. "What goes around comes around."
Another man, just out of prison, tells The Irish Times, "Sugg was a thug and a coward. There are three or four young ones in jail because of him. He got them to do his dirty work."
But for one 16-year-old, Sugg was a "sound bloke". "He didn't deserve to go like that. He was all right. He was good for a laugh. He was taking the piss out of me just before he was killed."
Some children in the Corduff Estate, like their counterparts in republican and loyalist areas of the North, seem old beyond their years. They're streetwise and cynical, asking visiting journalists how much money they earn.
They chat as knowledgeably about violence as other children do about Harry Potter.
Their local gang's notoriety seems to add a buzz to their lives. As a harmless elderly woman passes by, one shouts, "Here comes Ma Baker!"