Declan Brady sentenced to 10 years for facilitating Christopher Kirwan’s murder

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Declan Brady was sentenced at the Special Criminal Court on 24 June 2024 to 10 years in prison, with the final year suspended, for facilitating the murder of Christopher (aka Noel) Kirwan. The suspension was conditional on Brady dissociating himself from the Kinahans.

At an earlier sitting, Brady pleaded guilty to a single charge of participating in or contributing to a criminal organisation’s commission of Mr Kirwan’s murder, or being reckless as to whether his participation or contribution could facilitate it. The charge concerned activity between 20 October and 22 December 2016.

Mr Justice Tony Hunt said Brady was involved in attaching a tracker to Mr Kirwan’s car, assisting the Kinahan crime organisation in the killing. Mr Kirwan was shot six times outside his home at St Ronan’s Drive, Clondalkin, Dublin, on 22 December 2016. The report said he was an innocent man with no connection to either side in the gangland feud.

The judge fixed a 13-year sentence before mitigation and discounted three years for the guilty plea. The sentence was to run concurrently with Brady’s existing terms and was backdated to 30 April.

Brady had previously been sentenced to 11-and-a-half years, with the final year suspended, for supervising a firearms arsenal. He also received eight years and three months, with the final year suspended, for laundering more than €400,000; that sentence ran from 23 April 2021.