Lostmeringtopaddypower
Full Member
Face-to-face with Wayne Dundon, one of the most feared criminals in the country
Published Date:
15 May 2010
By Alan English, Limerick Leader editor
On Monday, Wayne Dundon walked into the Leader office to complain about coverage of his daughter's First Communion day. But the Limerick crime figure didn't stop there.
IT was a chilling message: this Monday the word came through that Wayne Dundon, one of the most feared and dangerous criminals in the country, was in the reception of the Limerick Leader office and looking to speak to a journalist.
A few hours before, our Monday edition had hit the streets and Dundon had featured prominently on the front page and on page 3. It seemed certain that his visit was connected to this coverage.
The page 3 report, featuring several prominent pictures, concerned the Communion of Wayne Dundon's daughter Linda Margaret on Saturday last.
Media reports at the weekend suggested that Dundon had splashed out €8,000 on his daughter's Communion.
Photographs showed a Cinderella-style horse drawn carriage Communion party outside the People's Park, and Dundon being driven around in an expensive car. The report in our Monday edition described it as "a vulgar exhibition of wealth" by the unemployed Dundon.
Dundon was holding a copy of the Limerick Leader when I arrived in the front office. He was angry, though not overly aggressive. He said he wanted to make a complaint.
"Ye've been writing about me for years and I never once complained. I'm fair game, I've been a bad person, I've done wrong things," he said. "Say what ye like about me. In for a penny, in for a pound. But my daughter was very upset. This has hit a nerve."
He denies the day cost €8,000, and says his family paid for the carriage when he was still in jail.
"All travelling people do a big day for their children's Communion. It was on the TV last week. I'm a Traveller, my wife (Anne] is a Traveller. We didn't spend eight thousand euro, like it says here.
"We had a meal for 40 or 50 people, it was just a family do."
Asked how an unemployed man who has spent the last five years in jail could afford to pay for the carriage and all the other trimmings that stopped onlookers in their tracks on Saturday afternoon, he said it was "hired out, from Belfast" while he was still in prison and paid for by his family.
As he got increasingly agitated, there were some curious glances from members of the public in Dundon's direction. Although he has a repuation for extreme violence – which led to him being served a deportation order by the British Home Office – his behaviour was not threatening. Had it been, I would have ended the conversation quickly and asked him to leave the office.
He projects a menacing physical presence and his capacity for violence is all too clear from his body language, but throughout the conversation he was mostly calm. After he had made his complaint about the Communion coverage, I asked what he was doing now that he is out of jail.
Nothing, he said, before making the extraordinary claim that he is "afraid" to go outside his house on Hyde Road. He jabbed his index finger at the front page of Monday's Leader and identified the man he blames for this situation: Steve Collins.
"I can't leave my house in case Steve Collins sees me and says I threatened him again. All he has to do is say that and I get another 10 years.
"Steve Collins doesn't like me. He's blaming me for killing his son. I've never been charged with anything. The trial is over. His son is dead 12 months, why is he still talking about me? I was in prison (when Roy Collins was shot]. It's nothing to do with me."
If Dundon was looking for sympathy, he did not get it after his comments were published in the Leader's sister paper, the Limerick Chronicle, on Tuesday. Not least from Steve Collins, who has been unflinchingly brave in confronting and condemning the Dundon-McCarthy gang and other gangland criminals.
"I'm outraged," he said. "He's caused so much hurt in everybody else's lives and he comes up with this."
******
Should the Limerick Leader have given him a podium?
Is it just gutter journalism to increase sales?
Answers please on a postcard to Patrick.
Published Date:
15 May 2010
By Alan English, Limerick Leader editor
On Monday, Wayne Dundon walked into the Leader office to complain about coverage of his daughter's First Communion day. But the Limerick crime figure didn't stop there.
IT was a chilling message: this Monday the word came through that Wayne Dundon, one of the most feared and dangerous criminals in the country, was in the reception of the Limerick Leader office and looking to speak to a journalist.
A few hours before, our Monday edition had hit the streets and Dundon had featured prominently on the front page and on page 3. It seemed certain that his visit was connected to this coverage.
The page 3 report, featuring several prominent pictures, concerned the Communion of Wayne Dundon's daughter Linda Margaret on Saturday last.
Media reports at the weekend suggested that Dundon had splashed out €8,000 on his daughter's Communion.
Photographs showed a Cinderella-style horse drawn carriage Communion party outside the People's Park, and Dundon being driven around in an expensive car. The report in our Monday edition described it as "a vulgar exhibition of wealth" by the unemployed Dundon.
Dundon was holding a copy of the Limerick Leader when I arrived in the front office. He was angry, though not overly aggressive. He said he wanted to make a complaint.
"Ye've been writing about me for years and I never once complained. I'm fair game, I've been a bad person, I've done wrong things," he said. "Say what ye like about me. In for a penny, in for a pound. But my daughter was very upset. This has hit a nerve."
He denies the day cost €8,000, and says his family paid for the carriage when he was still in jail.
"All travelling people do a big day for their children's Communion. It was on the TV last week. I'm a Traveller, my wife (Anne] is a Traveller. We didn't spend eight thousand euro, like it says here.
"We had a meal for 40 or 50 people, it was just a family do."
Asked how an unemployed man who has spent the last five years in jail could afford to pay for the carriage and all the other trimmings that stopped onlookers in their tracks on Saturday afternoon, he said it was "hired out, from Belfast" while he was still in prison and paid for by his family.
As he got increasingly agitated, there were some curious glances from members of the public in Dundon's direction. Although he has a repuation for extreme violence – which led to him being served a deportation order by the British Home Office – his behaviour was not threatening. Had it been, I would have ended the conversation quickly and asked him to leave the office.
He projects a menacing physical presence and his capacity for violence is all too clear from his body language, but throughout the conversation he was mostly calm. After he had made his complaint about the Communion coverage, I asked what he was doing now that he is out of jail.
Nothing, he said, before making the extraordinary claim that he is "afraid" to go outside his house on Hyde Road. He jabbed his index finger at the front page of Monday's Leader and identified the man he blames for this situation: Steve Collins.
"I can't leave my house in case Steve Collins sees me and says I threatened him again. All he has to do is say that and I get another 10 years.
"Steve Collins doesn't like me. He's blaming me for killing his son. I've never been charged with anything. The trial is over. His son is dead 12 months, why is he still talking about me? I was in prison (when Roy Collins was shot]. It's nothing to do with me."
If Dundon was looking for sympathy, he did not get it after his comments were published in the Leader's sister paper, the Limerick Chronicle, on Tuesday. Not least from Steve Collins, who has been unflinchingly brave in confronting and condemning the Dundon-McCarthy gang and other gangland criminals.
"I'm outraged," he said. "He's caused so much hurt in everybody else's lives and he comes up with this."
******
Should the Limerick Leader have given him a podium?
Is it just gutter journalism to increase sales?
Answers please on a postcard to Patrick.
