Mastermind behind The Don and Marlo

Irish Herald




By Cormac Byrne

Tuesday September 14 2010

CRIMINAL mastermind Eamonn Kelly is lucky to be alive and has amassed serious enemies through his associations with The Don and Marlo Hyland.

Kelly chased a lone gunman from his home in Killester on Saturday morning after the gun jammed during an assassination attempt.

Godfather Kelly (61) is believed to be the mastermind behind the rise of Dublin's most notorious criminals.

Gardai are currently trying to build a case against the elusive Kelly for allegedly organising the intimidation of two Dublin individuals at the behest of two builders.

Detectives understand that serious threats were made against a number of individuals and in one instance a car was torched.

In recent weeks Kelly was lifted by officers from the Organised Crime Unit (OCU), along with a 77-year-old former member of the Provisional IRA and a 28-year-old thug.

He was one of the first men in Irish history to be convicted of attempting to import cocaine into the country.

Kelly has remained a close associate of Eamonn Dunne's notorious Finglas drug gang, which was also headed by Marlo Hyland in recent years.

Both Hyland and Eamonn Dunne were assassinated in brutal gangland killings, in 2006 and April this year respectively.

From Furry Park Road in Killester, north Dublin, met with Eamonn Dunne regularly in the years up to his death in pubs and restaurants across Dublin.

"Both men had a mutual respect for each other and Kelly would have acted as tutor for Dunne," a source said.

"Kelly would know every major criminal figure on Dublin's northside."

The gangster was also responsible for grooming young Dublin criminals including Marlo Hyland (39).

Target

Hyland was one of the biggest drug dealers in the country and was involved in drug-trafficking and gun-smuggling.

He was the target of garda's Operation Oak and investigating gardai had arrested 30 associates and seized over €15m worth of drugs before his murder.

Hyland was murdered in 2006 as he slept in the home of a relative in Finglas.

As a popular and clever figure in the city's underworld, Kelly is believed to have curried favour with most of Dublin's major crime gangs.

But despite his popularity, gardai have told Kelly that a threat had been made against his life by a Dublin gang, and advised him to re-examine his personal security.

The father of nine cut his teeth as a robber working with the Official IRA in the 1980s. Despite never swearing an oath to the paramilitary group, Kelly worked with the organisation's shadowy Group B unit.

The group specialised in armed robberies of cash and drink deliveries, and was behind some of the biggest bank heists of the decade.

In 1988, he was jailed for three years for an assault on a member of the Worker's Party outside a club near the party's headquarters in Gardiner Place, Dublin.

In the early 1990s, Kelly became one of Ireland's first criminals to be jailed for bringing a major consignment of cocaine into the country.

In May 1993, he was sentenced to 14 years behind bars after he was caught with almost a kilogram of cocaine following a garda surveillance operation.

Now, despite his advancing years, Kelly has maintained contact with a number of figures in the criminal underworld.

- Cormac Byrne