Daughter of Noel Kirwan calls Kinahan gang lieutenant ‘stupid’
By Cillian Sherlock, Press Association
A family’s “normal day” in the run up to Christmas turned into its “worst nightmare” when a grandfather was shot dead, Dublin’s Special Criminal Court has heard.
Noel Kirwan, 62, died after being shot five times outside his Dublin home on December 22, 2016.
Gardaí said there was no evidence Mr Kirwan was involved in any form of criminality.
Sean McGovern, 39, has pleaded guilty to directing the activities of a criminal organisation in the lead-up to Kirwan’s murder.
He has also pleaded guilty to directing the activities of a criminal organisation in relation to the targeting and surveillance of James Gately in 2017, with a view to having him shot. But who was not ultimately killed.
On Monday, the three-judge non-jury Special Criminal Court convened for a sentencing hearing in relation to the charges against McGovern, who was identified by gardaí as a “senior lieutenant” of the Kinahan organised crime group (OCG) in Ireland.
In a victim-impact statement read to the court on her behalf, Kirwan’s daughter, Donna Kirwan, said she had been at work at the time of the shooting and said: “What started as for a normal day turned into our worst nightmare.”
She said the pain she had would never leave her.
She said her brother Kristopher was in Manchester at the time, and she would “never forget his screams” when she confirmed their father’s death on the phone.
They did not see their father’s body in the morgue until Christmas Eve.
She said: “What was supposed to be one of the happiest days of the year for families, was like being in a horror movie.”
She said they were “painting smiles on our faces” trying to shield the full facts of what happened from her son at Christmas.
“He was our dad, our friend, our safety net – he was supposed to walk me down the aisle one day.”
She described her father as a hard worker and a kind man who would give a helping hand to anyone who needed it.
She said he never got involved in selling drugs.
Speaking about McGovern and his injuries from an earlier shooting, which escalated the bitter Hutch-Kinahan feud, she said: “You were shot yourself in the Regency Hotel, you would have seen the fear and panic in your own family that day.
“Why would you chose to inflict that pain on us – it was Christmas.”
McGovern, a father of two, looked at the floor for much of the victim impact statement.
She continued: “You should have been out shopping for your own kids, not planning the murder of a 62-year-old grandfather.”
Kirwan said her father “would actually be offended that someone as stupid as you had him killed”.
She pointed out DNA evidence left behind and said: “How you thought you were going to get away with it is beyond me.”
She said: “Not only have you destroyed our lives, you have destroyed your own.”
She said McGovern had not been able to attend his own father’s funeral as he was in the UAE.
A separate victim-impact statement from Mr Kirwan’s partner, Bernadette Roe, was handed into the court but not read aloud.
Earlier in the hearing, Detective Sergeant Dolan Daly gave evidence on McGovern’s role in the lead up to the murder.
Daly said he had been targeted solely because of perceived links to the Hutch OCG – as he had been photographed by the media when he attended a funeral for a member of the Hutch family.
Kirwan was murdered after parking his car outside his home.
Daly said: “Within seconds of parking, at least seven shots were fired through the driver’s window of the vehicle, hitting Noel Kirwan on five occasions.”
He gave evidence linking McGovern to a “burner” phone used in planning the attack, as well as a tracking device that had been placed underneath Kirwan’s car.
He also said there was a fingerprint matching McGovern on an instruction document for the device and an adapter plug for its charger.
The sentencing hearing will continue on Friday.
The charge of directing a criminal organisation carries a potential sentence of life imprisonment.
