The Indo Daily: Dessie O’Hare released - What next for the murderer ‘too crazy’ for the Provisional IRA?

Dessie O’Hare, aka ‘The Border Fox’, was one of the most notorious criminals to emerge from the violence of The Troubles.

The Border Fox, Dessie O'Hare pictured as he is released from Portlaoise Prison Picture; Gerry Mooney

Thu 4 Jul 2024 at 07:12

From a small village on the Armagh-Monaghan border, Dessie O’Hare became one of the most notorious criminals to emerge from the Troubles.

A confessed killer who was linked to up to 27 murders and the man behind one of the most high-profile crimes in the history of the State, ‘The Border Fox’ - as he would become known - has been described as the last of a dying breed of Irish criminals.

He was linked to a series of killing and attacks but left the IRA in the late 1970s as he was deemed too violent and erratic for the group.

In 1987, he kidnapped dentist John O’Grady and demanded a £1.5m ransom while moving his victim around the country. At one point he severed O’Grady’s fingers and left them in a church as a mark of his intentions should the money not be paid up.

He led a gang of terror thugs who attempted a forced takeover of security at the property of late businessman Jim Mansfield Sr in Saggart, Co Dublin, during a chaotic period when Jim Mansfield Jr was employing a series of dissident groups at the family home.

Along with killer Declan ‘Whacker’ Duffy, O’Hare used his fearsome reputation and his fists to terrorise employee Martin Byrne, who would be placed on the Witness Protection Programme such was the level of threat in the run-up to the trials.

Now, O’Hare is a free man once again – having been released from prison for the third time.

Today on The Indo Daily, Ellen Coyne is joined by Paul Williams, special correspondent with the Irish Independent, to talk about a terror boss who was so brutal that he was deemed too violent for the Provisional IRA.