The Outsiders: Exposing the Secretive World of Ireland's Travellers by Eamon Dillon

Author:Eamon Dillon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: crime, ireland, fraud, dublin, irish, feud, travelers, collins, nomad, travellers, ward, limerick, antiques dealer, joyce, bunco, obrien, connors, bareknuckle, drugs abuse, scam artists, bareknuckle boxing, nomadism, finglas, greenhorn carrolls, gyspy, home repair scam, mcdonagh, mullingar, quilligan, rathkeale

When the shots rang out there had been a confused panic, as the mourners fled in every direction. Jaws Junior broke in the door of a nearby house in his desperation to get away from the gunmen he feared wanted to kill him. One of the bullets went through Deuce’s back as he ran for cover and fatally wounded him, piercing his heart.

Deuce lay on the road bleeding to death until relatives had eventually bundled him into a car. They were trying to bring him to a hospital when Gardaí had stopped the vehicle and called an ambulance for him. As soon as the violence broke out the small number of Garda officers at the scene had bravely done their best to separate the factions. They had moved in to prevent further attacks on the Ward clan.

When it came time to lay Deuce to rest, three days later, the Gardaí were taking no chances, with 100 officers on duty at the cemetery in Ballymote. The force included Gardaí armed with Uzi machine-guns, who were positioned in and around the cemetery in a deliberate show of force to discourage any more attacks on the mourners. To ensure a peaceful funeral, the Gardaí also applied to the courts for an order to shut down the pubs in the region for the duration of the funeral and the burial. Seventy public houses had to stay shut for the period, the first time the law was used in this manner.

At the subsequent trial it emerged that Hitler’s son, Martin Bumbee, had been seen dropping a handgun into a ditch during the gunfight. He had accidentally shot himself in the groin, as he attempted to stuff the weapon down his trousers. A Detective Sergeant had watched him attempt to dispose of the gun. It was discovered that seven bullets had been fired from the weapon which still had three rounds left in the magazine when it was seized. Martin Bumbee insisted that the gun had been suddenly passed to him and that he had fired two bullets by accident, resulting in his self-inflicted wound. When the detective and two colleagues went to arrest the wounded man, they found themselves surrounded by a hostile group of Travelling men who physically pulled Martin Bumbee out of their grasp. The long arm of the law caught up with Martin Bumbee a few days later, however, at Sligo General Hospital when the medical staff had finished treating him for the gunshot injury. Tests by the forensic scientists later showed that while it was a similar gun to the one used to fire the bullet that killed Deuce, Martin Bumbee’s gun was not the murder weapon.

It was a long, arduous legal procedure to prosecute the alleged killers of Deuce Ward. Detectives travelled back and forth between the UK and Ireland, interviewing eye-witnesses and collecting hundreds of statements. A serious problem for the prosecution was that many of the key witnesses were both the relatives of the accused men and their deadly rivals.

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