KILLER Kenneth Dundon has told a court he was “no Godfather” after staff in a Limerick pub barred him due to his family’s criminal “reputation”.
Mr Dundon, 60s, was previously sentenced to six years in prison for manslaughter after he repeatedly stabbed a man who “drowned” in his own blood, Limerick District Court heard.
Mr Dundon’s sons, Wayne, John, and Dessie – senior members of the Dundon McCarthy crime group – are each serving life sentences for three separate murders.
On Thursday, Dundon appeared as a witness for Anthony Kelly, also in his 60s, of Southill, Limerick, who lodged an objection to Eamonn O’Rahilly’s renewal of a licence to operate the Spotted Dog pub in Limerick city.
The court heard that Mr O’Rahilly said he told Mr Kelly that he and Dundon were barred from the boozer.
Mr O’Rahilly told the court that Mr Dundon was the type of person “who would put the fear of God” into staff and customers by just being in the pub.
Mr Kelly – who himself has convictions for hijacking, running a shebeen, and who was previously acquitted of murder, as well as possessing a semi-automatic gun with intent to endanger life – said he objected to Mr O’Rahilly renewing his licence because he had felt “disgraced” over the pub ban.
Mr O’Rahilly’s barrister, Thomas Wallace-O’Donnell, said his client was entitled to bar people from his pub – particularly, Dundon who the barrister suggested was “a member of a profoundly infamous family”.
Mr Wallace-O’Donnell said: “His (Dundon’s) presence in the bar made customers concerned, nervous, afraid — having a Dundon there —especially the father of the Dundon family, the Godfather, the paterfamilias of the family.
“It’s a matter of public record that Mr Dundon stabbed a man in the face who then drowned in his own blood.
“He is the father of children, many of who have been involved in feuds, essentially in gang warfare around Limerick and elsewhere.”
Mr Kelly’s barrister, junior counsel Liam Carroll, asked Mr Dundon if he wanted “to respond to what has been said, that you are the Godfather of the McCarthy Dundon organised crime group”.
Mr Dundon replied: “I’m a pensioner, I’m no Godfather of nothing.”
Dundon agreed he had served six years in prison for stabbing a man in the face, and that he had been on “Scotland Yard’s most wanted list”.
Judge Patricia Harney said she did not accept that the ban was “capricious in nature” and that she was satisfied Mr Kelly had failed in his objection.
