DEATH OF AN INNOCENT

On a crisp morning in November, the streets of Limerick came to a
standstill. Gaunt young men in smart rugby blazers stood grief-stricken,
seething and sickened by the senseless killing of a local hero. Others
held placards with one simple word that summed up the mood of the nation.
"Enough."

Shane Geoghegan's murder shook the country to its core. An innocent
bystander entangled in the bloody feuds that haunt his native town, he
didn't stand a chance against the hooded killer who stalked him as he
walked home in the early hours of a Sunday morning after watching a rugby
match with friends.

He tried to run, making a desperate dash to the shelter of a neighbour's
garden. A 6ft wall blocked his exit. He struggled to vault it, but failed.

Just steps from the front door of his home in Dooradoyle, four shots were
pumped into his upper body with a Glock semi-automatic pistol. A final
fatal shot to the head and the mission was complete. Shane's only mistake
was to bear a slight resemblance to the drug dealer his ruthless assassin
had been sent to kill.

On the morning of November 9, Ireland's most violent city woke to the news
that another man had been killed on its streets. Numbed by stories of
savage feuding, locals thought it another case of "thugs killing thugs",
another "man known to gardai caught up in a drug-fuelled brawl".

But as word of the victim's innocence filtered through, it provoked an
outpouring of anger across the island not seen since the death of crime
reporter Veronica Guerin 12 years ago.

In the Dail, Shane's death was described as "an obsenity that could not be
tolerated in civilised society". Justice Minister Dermot Ahern called his
killers "scum". He said they would be caught and put out of business.
Armed guards were deployed on the estate where he lived. Teams of
plain-clothes detectives flooded the streets. Within hours, dozens of
raids on suspected gangsters had been carried out.

The Government approved new measures to allow US-style covert surveillance
of suspected drug-dealers by gardai. Under the legislation, bugged
telephone calls, email conversations and secret video footage would be
allowed in criminal trials.

A 28-year-old aircraft fitter, Shane Geoghegan was the antithesis of the
men who murdered him -- respectable, hardworking, a pillar of civilised
society, a man who cherished life. He was deeply committed to his family
and friends, and the community in which he lived. He was a passionate
rugby player, captaining the thirds at his legendary Garryowen club. Next
year, he was due to marry his fiancee Genna Barry and start a family of
his own.

"He was such a nice, decent guy who was well respected by young and old
alike, said Eoghan Prendergast, the secretary of Garryowen club.

"He represented the spirit of days gone by because, off the pitch, he
really kept everyone together."

At his funeral mass in St Joseph's Church, Fr Jim Maher pleaded that some
good would come out of Shane's death.

"One of our hopes today," he said, "is that this kind of shocking
violence, which has frequently marred the good name of our city, will
become a thing of the past. Hopefully, this will mark a turning point...
and that the cycle of violence can be short-circuited and confined to
history."

It is still too early to tell if his words hold true and whether Shane's
murder really did mark a watershed in the fight against organised crime.
On the streets of Ballinacurra Weston, the stronghold of the gang believed
to have carried out the murder, the ten so-called "problem families" who
make life a misery for others in their midst, have been keeping a low
profile.

In the days after the murder, several members of the notorious
McCarthy-Dundon gang vanished from their usual haunts and were nowhere to
be seen.

Countless searches have been carried out resulting in seizures of
handguns, ammunition and drugs. Gardai believe Shane's killer, thought to
be a hired-in hit-man from north Dublin, and his driver have fled the
country and are being put up in a Spanish villa owned by the gang who
ordered the murder. But Shane Geoghegan's death may have marked a tipping
point in Limerick's culture of gangland crime. Earlier this month, the
heads of the city's warring factions were said to be willing to make peace
with each other.

Local residents will need some convincing, however, as they brace
themselves for the return of one of the country's most-feared drug bosses,
Christy Keane, who is due to be released from Portlaoise prison in the
coming weeks.

The 47-year-old father of two, who is serving a ten-year sentence for
possessing