Gardaí investigating the murder of a former chief of staff of the Real IRA are following a number of lines of inquiry, including that he may have been killed by former associates within the dissident movement amid reports of a split in the organisation in Cork.
Senior officers are not discounting the possibility that Aidan O’Driscoll (37) was gunned down in Blackpool on Cork’s northside about 5pm on Wednesday by drug dealers or other criminals he may have tried to extort money from.
However, they are also looking at the possible involvement of former associates. Mr O’Driscoll was thrown out of the Real IRA for “unrepublican conduct” in 2013 – a reference to unauthorised criminality – and he was later the subject of a punishment shooting which saw him suffer minor grazes to his legs, but he made no complaint to gardaí about the shooting.
It is understood some within the organisation in Dublin and the North were unhappy with the lenient nature of the shooting carried out in Cork, particularly when others who had fallen foul of the Real IRA leadership for criminality were shot dead in Dublin.
One line of inquiry gardaí are investigating is that there was a disagreement in Cork, with one faction siding with those in Dublin and the North who took the view that Mr O’Driscoll was dealt with too leniently, and others in Cork taking the view that he had received an appropriate punishment.
Gardaí point out that this issue arose three years ago when Mr O’Driscoll was shot and ended up spending less than an hour in the emergency department, and they are trying to establish whether, three years on, the lenient nature of the punishment shooting played any part in his murder.
‘An open mind’
“The situation is very still unclear and people are keeping an open mind because there’s a lot of work to be done yet in this investigation, but it’s fair to say the focus is more on someone from within the dissident movement rather than some outside criminal element,” said one source.
A postmortem examination by Assistant State Pathologist, Dr Margaret Bolster, confirmed that Mr O'Driscoll, a father of two from Glen Heights, Ballyvolane, was shot four times by either one or two gunmen who came up behind him on the Old Commons Road in Blackpool.
Gardaí will await the results of ballistics tests on three bullets recovered from his body and one recovered from the scene to see whether they were all fired from the same weapon or whether there were two gunmen involved in the killing. They have yet to recover any weapon.
Mr O’Driscoll, who was working as a painter and decorator, had just been dropped off from a van by work colleagues and gardaí are investigating whether he may have been followed to Blackpool by his killers from Tivoli where he was working.
Fled on foot
The gang fled on foot initially into Great William O’Brien Street where they got into a Nissan Almeira, which they abandoned and tried to burn at the junction of Seminary Road and Redemption Road. They then drove off from there in a Vauxhall Opel Astra found abandoned in Monard near Killeens.
The gang also tried to burn this second car but neither car was fully destroyed and gardaí are hoping that Garda technical experts will find DNA or other evidence during a forensic examination of both vehicles which may help them identify the killers.
Supt Mick Comyns of Mayfield Garda station, who is heading the investigation into the murder, appealed to anyone who may have seen either car in the Blackpool area of Cork's northside or in the Monard area of Killeens near Blarney to contact them.
He said: “Blackpool is a very busy area and we are very anxious to speak to anyone who saw anything suspicious here between 4.30pm and 5.30pm on Wednesday to contact us. We’re asking people to contact us at Anglesea Street Garda station on 021-4520000.”
