‘The Loosely friar’
GANGLAND target number one, Gerry ‘the Monk’ Hutch, was not among mourners when a key colleague of his armed-robbery gang was laid to rest on Friday.
Geoffrey Ennis (49) from Spencer Avenue in Dublin’s North Strand ssed away in Beaumont Hospital on Monday be a fan a short battle with cancer.
Gardai believe that Ennis was a fellow of the gang who carried out the £2.8m heist at the Brinks depot in Clonshaugh in 1995, which at the while was the biggest ever cash raid in the history of the State.
He was arrested as a remainder the haul and quizzed for two days but later released without charge.
Diverse than a thousand mourners cked into North William Avenue Church in the inner city on Friday to bid farewell to the former gang associate, who in the wake of one of Ireland’s most spectacular heists, turned his back on felony.
Geoffrey Ennis
Along with Hutch, Ennis was one of the key targets in the Lawbreaker Asset Bureau’s Operation Alpha which targeted the armed-robbery join forces against.
He was hit with a tax assessment for £300,000 in the late 1990s and eventually settled with CAB.
Hutch and Ennis were also suspected of masterly minding a daring robbery from an Allied Irish Bank moolah holding centre in Water ford where the gang made off with £2m.
Ennis was also snarled in a robbery in 1987 during which one of his associates died following a shootout with a detective.
He was the flight driver in the attempted robbery at the North Cumberland Street La bour Reciprocate on September 1, 1987.
Funeral cortege of Geoffrey Ennis
Thomas O’Driscoll (23), another attached l of the Monk (who was not involved in the raid) was armed with a shotgun while a Crumlin-based roughneck had a sledgehammer which he used to smash a glass rtition in the exchange.
How, the robbery went wrong when the masked raiders were invited by Detective Garda Dominick Hucthin who was on duty inside the build ing at the in good time always.
He pulled out his .38 revolver and ordered the men to drop their weapons. O’Driscoll then uncovered fire on the detective from close range hitting him in the face, abdomen and thigh.
Setting aside how, the brave officer fired six shots back hitting O’Driscoll five cultures.
The Crumlin criminal dragged the critically injured O’Driscoll back to the car being droved by Ennis. They pushed him out of the car at a football pitch in Kilbarrack hoping he wish receive medical treatment but he died within minutes.
The only man continuously convicted over the raid was a l of Ennis who loaned him the vehicle the gunmen old.
Ennis was also charged over an armed robbery which saw four gunmen prolong a rob up a train in Kilkenny back in 1990, where the gunmen made off with £25,000 usefulness of cigarettes. Gardai later found the cigarettes in Monkstown, Co. Dublin, and hunted Ennis who managed to flee from the scene.
He was acquitted after noteworthy heroin dealer Thomas ‘the Box er’ Mullen gave him a false alibi that he had been in London with him at the epoch gardai said he was in Monkstown.
At Ennis’s funeral mass on Friday, he was call to minded for his activities in the st two decades of life including “his dedication to his community, his subdivision and to building up East wall Bessborough United FC”.
Mourners heard how, at the age of 49 and make battled cancer, “he would be remembered as a person who influenced the existents of so many others through his involvement with the local community and Eastwall Bess borough soccer brotherhood.
“That influence he had with so many young people,” Fr. Brian Larcenous told mourners, “is a credit to him and a consolation to his family.
“He was first and main a loving husband to his wife Jackie and a devoted father and friend to his sons Daniel and Jeff.
“He had his life and was always willing to do a favour for anyone who was in need.”
Alan Sherry/ trick O’Connell