KINAHAN cartel gangster Liam Roe is now reunited his slain cousin David Byrne, his funeral mass was told.
The 46-year-old Criminal Assets Bureau target passed away this week after suffering from cancer.
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Roe carried Byrne’s €20,000 coffin in February, 2016, after he was shot dead in the now infamous gun attack by the Hutch gang at the Regency Hotel.
He was a notorious Dublin crime figure, suspected of being involved in at least three gun attacks over the years.
Mourners, including Byrne’s mother Sadie, dressed in black with red ties or red ribbons for Liverpool supporter Roe’s requiem mass at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church on Mourne Road in his native Drimnagh.
His good friend James O’Leary told the service that despite being diagnosed with cancer in May, just four weeks ago he spent time with him and Roe had spoken about his plans to marry his long-term partner Niamh when he was cured.
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The pal said: “The biggest plan he had was that he was going to put a ring on the love of his life’s finger.
“He was going to marry Niamh. But unfortunately, and heartbreakingly, this was not to be, and Liam was taken from us.
“He now sits beside his mam, cousin David, loved ones and friends, watching down on us from above. He will never walk alone.”
The mass was told that he was pre-deceased by his beloved mum Ann, and survived by his father Seamus, partner Niamh, stepchildren Mia and Ashton, and a wider circle of family and friends.
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Items brought to the altar as symbols of Roe’s life included a Liverpool jersey, a dumbbell, his dog lead, and a photograph of him with his mother.
Mr O’Leary said he had known Roe for 25 years, first meeting him when he was 15, but it was a few years later when he was working as a doorman in a city nightclub that he remembered him pulling up in a blue Subaru Impreza asking “alright James. Any parties?”
Referring to his trademark tan, he added: “He was a bigger, and a lot browner man than I remembered previously, but there was no mistaking those baby blue eyes.”
He said that after a few months Roe had confided in him how much a previous car crash that nearly claimed his life had affected his mental health and that he helped him get his life back on track by introducing him to the gym.
He added: “He never complained, he trained through all the injuries he had endured, and he created what he termed the best set of pecs in Dublin.
“Liam had the sharpest, quickest, armour piercing tongue that I ever heard in all my life.
“He was the king of the one-liners. God love you if you ever got into a row with him, there was only ever going to be one winner.
“I worked on a few doors in the city centre, and Liam would always be guaranteed to turn up every week with a different new circle of friends, saying ‘O’Leary, they’re all good, I’ll keep an eye on them’.
“Most of the lads came from different circles of life, but Liam had an incredible ability to blend in and mingle with every single one of them.”
He also told how Roe would kiss a picture of his mum and bless himself before leaving the house every day and that most Saturdays were spent working out before hitting a selection of Dublin pubs.
After the mass, the mobster’s remains were brought to Behernabreena Cemetery for burial.
Gardaí regarded Roe, who was nicknamed ‘Bop’, as being a key figure in the Kinahan cartel that controlled a large portion of Ireland’s drugs trade.
He became a major target for gardaí following the Regency Hotel shooting in February 2016 as they cracked down on the Hutch and Kinahan organised crime groups.
He was regularly seen with David Byrne’s brother Liam, who is behind bars in the UK awaiting trial on firearm charges
Roe was a target of CAB in its fight to seize some €1.4million worth of assets from the Byrne crime organisation.
He previously claimed in a CAB case that he was unemployed, relying on his father’s financial support and on friends for transport.
But he was once stopped at Dublin Airport with €60,000 in his check-in bag. When challenged, he produced a bank account which showed a balance of €294,000.
He survived a hit in 2015 in the long-running feud with the Hutch gang, when a hitman approached him outside the Red Cow Inn but he escaped when the gun jammed.
Roe was suspected of being part of a four-man hit team which attempted to murder gangland rival Brian Rattigan in 2002 during the infamous Crumlin-Drimnagh feud, which left 15 young men dead.
The target survived the hit, despite being shot at close range. Rattigan was later jailed for 18 years for drugs offences but is now freed.
Roe was also suspected of being part of the hit team which murdered Rattigan’s 18-year-old brother Joey in 2002 and it’s also believed he shot another man in the Coombe area in the same year but the victim survived.
