First published in Ireland on Sunday (now the Irish Mail on Sunday) on 12/11/2006
By: MICHAEL O’FARRELL
Investigative Correspondent
PAUL CRAWFORD is pretty sure of two things – he will be killed soon and someone else’s life will be taken in revenge for his death.
Such is life for those who participate in the drug-fuelled gang warfare that has taken root in Limerick’s most deprived areas.
Sitting in the front room of the family home, he appears remarkably calm about the prospect of impending death. But as he speaks, he glances sideways through the front window each time he hears the sound of a car approaching through the notorious O’Malley Park estate.
At the bottom of the window pane, a neat bullet hole has been covered over with Sellotape to keep the draught out. But that is the least of this particular family’s worries.
Because of his connections to Limerick’s ongoing gangland feud, Paul Crawford, 32, has a price on his head. That also puts anyone close to him in grave danger, no matter how young or innocent they may be.
An associate of the southsidebased McCarthy-Dundon gang, he has so far been the target of four murder attempts, three of which came in a recent frenetic 72 hours.
The hole in the Crawfords’ front window was caused by one of 17 rounds that were sprayed at the house from an automatic weapon on Thursday week.
The next night, just after 8pm, a stolen Hyundai Sports Coupé containing three members of the rival Keane-Collopy gang pulled up beside him in nearby Carew Park.
From the open car window, a semiautomatic weapon was pointed directly at his head – but it jammed.
The four attackers, one of them aged just 15, were later apprehended by the Garda Emergency Response Unit, following a chase involving speeds of almost 250km/h.
Then, last Sunday, his five-yearold nephew, Jordan, was shot as a gunman stepped out of a vehicle and aimed a machine gun at family members. The attackers had attempted to draw the Crawford family into the open by smashing a car window outside their house.
The gun jammed after just one shot but that bullet ripped through Jordan’s left thigh, leaving him screaming in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.
In July, Jordan’s eight-year-old brother, Dylan, had a miraculous On his right middle finger, a chunky gold ring carries a large, blue gem stone. His left ear sports a discreet loop earring while a small gold stud pierces his left eyebrow.
A jagged L-shape scar on the left side of his face bears testimony to a recent bar fight when he was glassed.
‘It was just a normal bar fight,’ he shrugs.
According to Garda sources, he is a potentially violent criminal linked to the McCarthy-Dundon gang, who are involved in the drugs trade.
‘He projects himself as being one of their head men. He would like to see himself as that and has a bit of an ego.’ The Crawford name may not be well known nationally – unlike other feuding families in Limerick – but there are few people in the city who do not associate it with the ongoing fued.
Last November, one family member was arrested close to Colbert station after allegedly ferrying a E300,000 stash of cocaine on the train from Dublin. The drugs were hidden beneath a twoyear-old child in a pram. The person absconded and their whereabouts are currently unknown.
Gardaà suspect the haul was being delivered to a major drugs gang based in Southill.
Paul Crawford himself, however, denies any involvement in drugs.
Nor, he claims, has he ever handled a firearm.
‘The gardaà will tell you that but it’s not true,’ he says, adding that he has only been convicted of ‘minor offences – car theft when I was 18 and stuff like that.’ His latest brush with the law saw him imprisoned on remand two weeks ago for what he described as a road-traffic offence.
‘That was a couple of weeks ago but it was struck out,’ he says.
After the attack on his home last Thursday week, he was arrested again on the northside of the city, in the Moyross area.
‘The gardaà said I was dangerous driving. How could I be dangerous driving when I was only doing 15 miles an hour?
‘I was kept in the barracks all escape. He was a passenger in his uncle Paul’s car when another gunman sprayed it with automatic gunfire.
In his short life, Dylan has already witnessed three shootings at close quarters.
As he speaks, Paul Crawford’s home phone and mobile never stop ringing. One of the calls had warned him of our approach through the Southill area. For the moment, no one enters this warren of deprivation unseen.
He halts the interview as the phone rings again. This time, it’s business.
‘Yeah, he got bail but he’ll be back next week,’ he tells the person on the other end.
‘Every one of my friends are in jail.
There’s 50 of them,’ he says, after hanging up the phone.
But just who is Paul Crawford and why are others in Limerick so resolutely determined to kill him?
On the surface, the unemployed father of two appears friendly and accommodating. His manner is almost gentle and he frequently flashes a pleasant smile.
He says he had one good friend who was shot dead in the ongoing Limerick feud but does not want to name the man or identify the circumstances.
‘He was just shot dead, that’s all,’ he says.
‘I’ve 50 friends – every one of them in jail’ night and my mother and father had no protection. They were left here on their own after the house being riddled with 17 bullets.’ Garda sources have indicated that the attacks on Paul Crawford are being ordered by the Keane-Collopy gang. Most of the violence and killing in Limerick can be attributed to the drugstrade turf war between the McCarthy-Dundon gang on the southside of the city and the Keane-Collopy gang on the northside.
The depth of the hatred between the two groupings is demonstrated by the graffiti scrawled on the walls of burned-out houses just across the road from the Crawford home and elsewhere throughout the Southill area.
‘Keanes-Collopys rats 10,000 per cent,’ reads one of the slogans.
Paul Crawford has no problem with being identified with the McCarthy-Dundon faction, although he prefers not to use the term ‘associate’.
‘I’m friends with them, alright.
I’ve known them years.’ However, he denies this has led to the Keane-Collopy gang ordering an end to his life.
‘It’s not the Collopys. It’s a northside-based gang,’ is all he will say.
‘I can’t tell you. If I told you, you’d print it.’ And why would they want to kill him?
‘They just want targets, they want to be on top. They’re dopes.
They’re fools. They can’t do nothing right.’ Paul’s pregnant sister, Sandra, who has been chain-smoking throughout the interview, also joins in to deny the Collopy theory.
‘It’s not the Collopys. Sure, I was going out with a Collopy for six years. We had a child.’ According to some locals, the baby boy, who tragically died of cot-death syndrome last year, brought the Crawfords closer to the Collopy gang for a time.
According to that theory, the Collopys are now annoyed that the Crawfords are aligning themselves with the McCarthy-Dundons again.
Whatever the truth, it seems inevitable that Limerick’s feuding families are about to take another life. When asked if he thinks he will be shot soon, Paul Crawford’s answer is brutally straightforward.
‘Probably,’ he says, with a shrug. ‘It’s devastating but what can you do?’
