Eamon Dunne

Eamon Dunne (17 February 1976 – 23 April 2010) was a major Irish organised crime figure from Finglas, North Dublin.^[1][2] Nicknamed "The Don" by media outlets, Dunne led a gang based in Finglas, Cabra, and Ballymun, who were involved in drug dealing, armed robbery, extortion and murder.^[2] He took control of the gang after the murder of crime boss Martin "Marlo" Hyland, who was shot dead in December 2006, and Gardaí suspect that Dunne, who was one of Hyland's closest associates, drove the getaway car for the killers.^[3][4]

Eamon Dunne
Dunne c. 2009
Born	(1976-02-17)February 17, 1976 Dublin, Ireland
Died	April 23, 2010(2010-04-23) (aged 34) Cabra, Dublin, Ireland
Cause of death	Shot dead by own associates
Resting place	Dardistown Cemetery
Other names	"The Don", Eamon Dunne Jnr.

Dunne was linked to 17 gangland murders over the next three years, as he consolidated his position by having rivals and suspected Garda informers killed.^[5] On 23 April 2010, Dunne was shot dead at a birthday party in Cabra in front of his seventeen year old daughter by his former associates. He was considered Ireland's "public enemy number one" at the time of his murder.^[6]

Early life

The son of Eamon and Margaret Dunne,^[7] Eamon Dunne was born on February 17, 1976,^[8] and grew up in Cabra. Unlike many of his criminal contemporaries, he completed his Leaving Certificate examinations, attending St Declan's College. Prior to becoming a criminal, he first worked in meat wholesale, later becoming a taxi driver.^[8] He ran a motor business, which he used as a front for his criminal activities.^[9]

Dunne was believed by Gardaí to be a woman-beater who had assaulted his girlfriend and had a long history of violence towards other women.^[4][10]

Criminal activities

A member of Marlo Hyland's crime gang, Dunne first came to Garda attention in 2002 after being caught at a house during a raid with a large quantity of cocaine and ecstasy; at the time of his death, he was due to stand trial for this in the Supreme Court. Several months later, Dunne was stopped while driving a car and a man was found bound and gagged in the boot.^[9] Dunne had reportedly been a protegé of Dublin criminal godfather Eamon Kelly.^[11]

In 2006, Hyland was murdered at the home of a relative in Finglas, along with innocent plumber Anthony Campbell;^[12] it is suspected that Dunne was responsible for ordering Hyland's murder and drove the getaway car.^[4] Following Hyland's murder, Dunne quickly filled the power vacuum and took control of the drug trade in Dublin.^[4]

Dunne had forged links with a number of other criminal groups, including "Fat" Freddie Thompson's criminal group in Dublin and the McCarthy-Dundon gang in Limerick, the latter of whom he reportedly organized the murder of Latvian woman Baiba Saulite for.^[10]

For many years, newspapers were not able to name Dunne in their reports for legal reasons, instead dubbing him "The Don". Dunne sent several unsuccessful legal letters to newspapers, claiming that their reports placed his life in jeopardy.^[5][13]

At the time of his death, Dunne was on bail and awaiting trial in connection with a €900,000 robbery of a cash-in-transit van in Celbridge in 2007.^[9] The Irish Independent reported that he was expected to face a number of criminal charges under gangland legislation should he not have been murdered.^[6]

Victims

Dunne was noted for his extreme propensity for murder, including his own associates.^[10] While not pulling the trigger himself, Dunne was suspected of ordering at least a dozen gangland murders in the years before his death.^[4]

The victims included:

• John Paul Joyce (30), a drug trafficker, shot dead and body dumped near Dublin Airport in January 2010.^[9]
• David Thomas (43), shot dead in Finglas in October 2009.^[4]
• Paul Smyth (34), from Finglas, killed and dumped in Balbriggan, June 2009.^[4]
• Michael Murray (41), shot dead in Finglas, March 2009.^[14]
• Graham McNally (34), formerly a close associate, shot dead in Finglas, January 2009.^[15]
• Michael 'Roly' Cronin (35), a major drug dealer, and James Maloney (26), his driver, shot dead in Dublin city centre, January 2009.^[16]
• Paul 'Farmer' Martin (30), a convicted bank robber, shot dead at a pub in Finglas, August 2008.^[4]
• Trevor Walsh (33), shot dead at Kippure Park, Finglas, two days after he was released from prison, in July 2008.^[17]
• John Daly (27), shot dead as he sat in a taxi in Finglas, October 2007, two months after his release from prison, where he served a nine-year sentence for armed robbery.^[18]

Downfall and death

For several years, Dunne had suffered from anxiety and paranoia; it was reported that in 2001 he had expressed suicidal thoughts to his GP, and two years later he was reportedly drinking eight cans of alcohol a night and snorting large quantities of cocaine.^[19] Dunne was also reportedly in financial difficulty before his death, having walked onto a halting site the weekend before his murder and demanded €20,000 from two men.^[20]

Dunne's increasing paranoia and unstable behaviour eventually led to his own gang members turning against him. Due to the increased Garda attention brought on by Dunne's repeated murders, Gardaí believe crime boss Christy Kinahan, who supplied Dunne's gang with drugs, conspired with Dunne's former mentor Eamon Kelly to have him killed.^[21][22] Together with some of Dunne's closest associates they are suspected of organising his murder and of hiring a gang of young criminals from the north inner city to actually carry out the hit.^[23]

Thirty-four-year-old Dunne was murdered as he attended a friend's birthday party at a pub in Cabra on 23 April 2010. A hit team of four men arrived in a car, one of them waved his gun around and warned smokers outside the pub to disperse. He then guarded the front door. Two masked gunmen entered and shot Dunne several times in the head and body, in front of his seventeen-year-old daughter, before escaping in a waiting car.^[24] Dunne unsuccessfully attempted to use a loungeboy as a human shield^[25] before the first gunman shot Dunne twice in the chest & once in the head, with the second gunman also performing the "Mozambique Drill" on him as he lay on the ground.^[26] Despite his bodyguard and a number of close associates being present, nobody made any attempt to prevent the murder.^[26]

Dunne's death was widely celebrated; the mother of plumber Anthony Campbell, who was murdered during Dunne's assassination of Martin Hyland, said he was now "drinking with the devil",^[27] while Cormac Byrne of the Irish Independent described him as a "vicious and nasty paranoid coke-fuelled mess".^[28] Senior Gardaí reported he was the "worst we've ever seen in terms of body counts".^[10] No one has been ever been convicted for Dunne's murder;^[29] speaking to the Irish Times, a Garda source reported that "the list of subjects [would] be very very long".^[30] Dunne is buried in Dardistown Cemetery head-to-head with Paddy Doyle, a former gangland criminal who was ambushed and killed in Spain in 2007; the pair had known each other since childhood.^[31]

In 2020, the High Court ruled that insurance company Irish Life did not have to pay out on an insurance policy taken out by Dunne. Legal action had been taken against Irish Life by Dunne's ex-partner Georgina Saunders, but the court found that Dunne's heavy cocaine usage had not been disclosed to the company.^[19]

See also

• List of unsolved murders