Sinn Fein boss Mary Lou McDonald says ‘I am opposed to organised criminal gangs’ as ex-councillor Jonathan Dowdall admits role in mafia-style murder

Jonathan Dowdall was elected to Dublin City council in May 2014.

His stint on the council was short and turbulent.

According to media reports from The Journal, he said he was resigning “for health reasons” in September 2014.

At the time Ms McDonald said he was “a very popular and respected member of his community and he will be missed in his elected role by me, the local party organisation and by local constituents”.

Actually he went on to remain a councillor, saying that he had merely quit Sinn Fein.

In fact, he had done neither: he stayed as a Sinn Fein councillor until February 2015, when he finally did quit the council for real.

He later went on to claim this was because of “bullying” by some Sinn Fein members – a claim the party disputed.

It then emerged that in January 2015, Dowdall and his father Patrick had kidnapped and assaulted a man.

Dublin’s Special Criminal Court was told the man – a convicted fraudster – met the pair after answering an advert about a motorbike for sale.

The court was told Jonathan Dowdall believed the man was attempting to defraud him, so he was tied to a chair, while he listened to the Dowdalls talking about chopping him up and feeding him to dogs.

It also heard that Jonathan Dowdall put a tea-towel over the victim’s face and poured a bucket of water over his head – a manoeuvre known as ‘waterboarding’, which can recreate the sensation of drowning.

The court also heard that during the course of the victim’s ordeal he was told that Jonathan Dowdall was a “good friend of Gerry Adams and Mary Lou McDonald”.

The victim was also told that he had been “stupid” for attempting to “mess with the head of the IRA”.

Now this week, Jonathan Dowdall (aged in his mid-40s and from Cabra, Dublin) admitted to either intentionally or recklessly “facilitating the commission of a serious offence” by a “criminal organisation... to wit: the murder of David Byrne”.

Specifically, Dowdall had facilitated the killing “by making a room available at the Regency Hotel for that criminal organisation or its members”.

David Byrne was shot to death on February 6, 2016, in one of the most spectacular and brazen murders seen in Ireland since the end of the Troubles.

During a boxing weigh-in event at the north Dublin hotel, four men burst in, some disguised as police – and one said to have been disguised as a woman.

They assailants opened fire on those attending the event with assault rifles, killing Byrne – reportedly as part of a feud between the Hutch and Kinahan crime gangs (Byrne belonged to the latter).

Today, Mary Lou McDonald said it was “a heinous and disgusting crime” adding: “I commend the Gardai for their work and they have my ongoing and unwavering support in tackling the scourge of organised criminal gangs in my constituency.”

DUP Mid Ulster MLA Keith Buchanan said: “Mary Lou needs to make a clear statement on how SF defines ‘a heinous and disgusting crime’.”

He noted that Sinn Fein still sees the actions of IRA men as cause for “celebration” and hails them as “heroes”, despite the IRA’s “countless murders of innocent Protestants” and atrocities like Bloody Friday.

For more from this reporter, click here:

• Former would-be killer and ex-junior IRA leader among those involved with Irish language group that has been promised £4m by the Tories

• Former IRA ‘folk hero’ is ‘hardly fitting face for Amnesty International campaign’ say unionists