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<!-- EDIT BELOW THIS THE CRUMLIN/DRIMNAGH FEUD

The Crumlin/Drimnagh Feud is a feud between rival criminal gangs in South Inner City Dublin,Ireland.The feud began in 2000 when a drugs seizure in a Dublin hotel led to a split in a gang of young criminals in their late teens and early twenties,most of whom had grown up together and went to the same school.The resulting violence between the two rival factions has led to 16 murders and scores of beatings,stabbings,shootings and pipe bomb attacks.

BACKGROUND

By 2000 a gang of young friends from Crumlin,Drimnagh and South Inner City Dublin had graduated from stealing cars and street level dealing to become major suppliers of drugs in South Dublin.They developed contacts with a major Irish gangster based in Spain who supplied them with cocaine,ecstasy and cannabis.Many of the shipments he delivered to Ireland also included guns which were later used in the feud.On March 2000 at the Holiday Inn,Pearse Street,Dublin,three members of the gang were arrested with 2 kg of cocaine and 49,000 ecstasy tablets.All three refused to co-operate with investigating detectives.Declan Gavin,20,a senior member of the gang was released after two days of questioning without being charged because he wasn't actually in the room with the drugs at the time Gardai entered.The other two junior members of the gang who had been in the room were charged withn posession of cocaine and ecstasy with intent to supply.Although there is no evidence of Gavin being an informer he was immediately labeled a "rat" by some gang members.This resulted in the gang splitting in to two rival factions with "Fat" Freddie Thompson leading one faction and Brian Rattigan leading the other.

FEUD

The first victim in the feud was Declan Gavin who was murdered in August 2001.He was stabbed to death outside Abrakebabra fast food restaurant in Crumlin by a masked man who escaped in a getaway car.The next killed was 18 year old Joseph Rattigan,brother of gang leader Brian.He was shot dead on Cooley Road in Drimnagh in July 2002.In 2003 Brian Rattigan was arrested for shooting at Garda in their patrol car as they pursued the car Rattigan was travelling in.Although Rattigan received a 13 year prison sententce for this incident he continued to control his gang from prison.

Paul Warren,24,who was suspected of setting up Joseph Rattigan,was shot dead in a public house in Newmarket Square in February 2004.While Warren was drinking,two masked and armed men came in to the pub,one stood at the front door guarding customers while the other chased Warren in to the toilets and shot him twice,once in the face.Brian Rattigan was suspected of organising the hit from his prison cell using a mobile phone. John Roche,25,from Crumlin and a suspect in the Warren hit,was shot dead as he walked to his apartment in the South Inner City in March 2005. There was three killings in two days in November 2005 begining with Darren Geoghegan,26, and Gavin Byrne,30.Both men, who were Thompson faction members,were shot dead as they sat in a Lexus car in Firhouse after being lured to a meeting. Two days later Noel Roche,a brother of John, was shot dead as he sat in traffic on Clontarf Road.His driver escaped unharmed. Wayne Zambra,21, was shot dead as he sat in his car on Cameron Street in August 2006.A month later Gary Bryan,31, was shot dead as he worked on a car outside his girlfriend's home.Both men were part of the Rattigan faction.Three months later in December 2006,Eddie McCabe,21,was tortured and beaten to death after he was abducted by Rattigan gang members.His mutilated body was dumped in an laneway in Inchicore. Shay O'Byrne(27) was shot dead in front of his girlfriend(Brian Rattigan's sister) outside their home by a masked gunman in March 2009.

Paddy Doyle,27, an enforcer for the Thompson gang and a suspect in several of the murders,was shot dead in Spain in February 2008. This murder was unconnected to the feud in Dublin.

In July 2009,Athony Cannon,26,was shot several times in the head in front of women and children by a masked gunman in Ballyfermot,West Dublin.Cannon was wearing a bullet proof vest when he died.He was a senior member of the Rattigan gang.

Brian Rattigan was convicted of murdering Declan Gavin after a trial in December 2009.He was sentenced to life in prison to add to the thirteen year sentenced he received for shooting at Gardai in 2003.

With the killing of Cannon it had been hoped that the feud would end, with Thompson's rivals appeared to have more or less admitted defeat.But two killings in as many days in September 2012 brought the feud back to national attention.

SEPTEMBER 2012 ATTACKS

Gerard Eglington,27,was shot dead in front of his 11 year old step-daughter and infant son in Portarington,Laois,on the 24th of September after a gunman entered his home early in the morning.The next day,Declan o'Reilly,34,was shot dead in front of his young son as they walked along South Circular Road in Dublin.Both murders were ordered by the same man who is a close associate of gang leader Freddie Thompson.

CURRENT SITUATION

On February 13th 2013,Brian Rattigan was convicted of operating a drugs network from his prison cell.He was linked to 5 kg of heroin found in a house in Walkinstown through messages found on a mobile phone in his cell.None of Rattigan's men were in court to support him when he was convicted and his gang has all but dissolved."Fat" Freddie Thompson is in Spain after he was extradited there following a request from Spanish authorities investigating Thompson and other Irish criminals based in Spain.While he has been away, younger criminals,many of them teenagers, have taken over his strongholds.Thompson and Rattigan are seen as "yesterday's men" by these new gangs who have been involved in murders,armed robbery and pipe bomb attacks.