MURDER victim Mickey Barr has been linked to a bloody feud in the city which so far has claimed the lives of six men.
Originally from Strabane in Co Tyrone, he died after being shot in a Dublin bar on Monday night.
It is believed the 35-year-old was shot in the head around 9.30pm after a man walked into the Sunset House, in the Summerhill area of the city close to Croke Park, and opened fire hitting him three times.
The Strabane native spent time in Portlaoise prison in the past and was acquitted of ‘IRA’ membership along with six other men last year.
It is understood he had lived in Dublin for several years and worked in the bar where he died.
His death is being linked to the bitter Kinahan-Hutch feud which is gripping the city.
It is believed a nephew of crime lord Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch was in the bar at the time but was unhurt.
A suspected getaway was later found burnt out on Walsh Road in Drumcondra.
In a separate attack around two hours later 37-year-old Tom Farnan was gunned down in the Kilcronan area of Clondalkin in the west of the city.
It is not believed this attack is connected to the feud.
Barr is known to have been friendly with a key suspect in the Regency Hotel shooting which sparked the latest round of blood letting in Dublin’s murky under world.
It is understood the home of a Strabane based suspect, dubbed ‘Flatcap’, and another property were raided by the PSNI in Strabane last week.
Barr’s Dublin home was also raided by Gardai investigating the Regency attack last week.
One man, Dublin gangster David Byrne, was shot dead when masked men dressed as Garda members burst into a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel and opened fire with powerful automatic riffles.
In the days after the Regency attack a man claiming to represent the Continuity IRA said the group was responsible.
The was later dismissed by republican sources.
The deadly attack is not the first time the Barr family has been targeted.
His father Collie Barr survived after being badly beaten and shot four times in the elbows and legs by the INLA in Strabane in 2002.
The murder victim was due to be sentenced at Dublin’s non-jury Special Criminal Court later this week for handling stolen electrical equipment at Finnstown House Hotel, Newcastle Road, Lucan, Co Dublin in July 2014.
In June last year charges of IRA membership were dropped against him and six other men after the Special Criminal Court ruled their arrests were unlawful.
Mr Barr’s death brings to six the number of men believed to have been gunned down as part of the feud between the Kinahan and Hutch crime families.
Just last week innocent 24-year-old Martin O’Rourke was shot dead on a Dublin street in broad day light in a case of mistaken identity.
The feud was sparked by the murder of gang member Gary Hutch in Spain last year.
It took another deadly twist in February when members of the Hutch faction shot leading Kinahan crime gang figure David Byrne at the Regency Hotel.
Since then the Kinahan gang has embarked in a wave of reprisal killings including that of Eddie Hutch (58), the brother of crime lord Gerry Hutch.
In March Hutch gang associate Noel ‘Kingsize’ Duggan was also gunned down outside his home in Ratoath, Co Meath.
The lethal round of killings has led to calls for an end to the violence.
Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin urged people to turn their backs on those responsible.
"Hatred and evil easily become a chain and those who resort to such violence feel that they are the strong ones,” he said.
“We need to form a strong alliance of all those who oppose violence on our streets.
"We cannot abandon the good honest men, women and children of parts of our inner city."
