DUBLIN CASTLE 22 AUGUST 2022
Today I used a Canon 1Ds III which I obtained in 2007 and about a year later I realised that autofocus was defective I returned the camera a number of times for repair but the problem remained.
Later I began to notice overheating issues and that the images were noisy. Recently I had the option to obtain a number of suitable manual lenses at a very good price so I decided to see if the camera was usable in manual mode and I have been reasonably happy but today my close up shots of the Veronica Guerin bust at Dublin Castle were disappointing.
On the evening of 25 June 1996, Gilligan drug gang members Charles Bowden, Brian Meehan, Kieran ‘Muscles’ Concannon, Peter Mitchell and Paul Ward met at their distribution premises on the Greenmount Industrial Estate. Bowden, the gang’s distributor and ammunition quartermaster, supplied the three with a Colt Python revolver loaded with .357 Magnum semiwadcutter bullets. On 26 June 1996, while driving her red Opel Calibra, Guerin stopped at a red traffic light on the Naas Dual Carriageway near Newlands Cross, on the outskirts of Dublin, unaware she was being followed. She was shot six times, fatally, by one of two men sitting on a motorcycle.
About an hour after Guerin was murdered, a meeting took place in Moore Street, Dublin, between Bowden, Meehan, and Mitchell. Bowden later denied under oath in court that the purpose of the meeting was the disposal of the weapon but rather that it was an excuse to appear in a public setting to place them away from the incident.
At the time of her murder, Traynor was seeking a High Court order against Guerin to prevent her from publishing a book about his involvement in organised crime. Guerin was killed two days before she was due to speak at a Freedom Forum conference in London. The topic of her segment was “Dying to Tell the Story: Journalists at Risk.”
Her funeral service, on 29 June 1996 at a church in Dublin Airport, was attended by Ireland’s Taoiseach John Bruton, and the head of the armed forces. It was covered live by Raidió Teilifís Éireann. On 4 July, labour unions across Ireland called for a moment of silence in her memory, which was duly observed by people around the country. Guerin is buried in Dardistown Cemetery, County Dublin.
