Convicted dealer who survived gang hit makes rare appearance in public

Greg Lynch attends his granddad's funeral

Nicola Tallant and Eamon Dillon

Convicted drugs trafficker Greg Lynch made a rare public appearance to mourn his grandfather Jack last week.

Photos, obtained by the Sunday World, show Lynch looking in better health than ever outside the Augustinian Church on Thomas Street last Thursday morning.

Dressed in a white shirt and black tie, Lynch was in one of the six limousines hired for the funeral, which made its way past his old stomping ground of Oliver Bond flats towards Palmerstown Cemetery.

Lynch, who once ran the Kinahan cartel’s operations in the south inner city, still bears the scars from an assassination attempt five years ago which was blamed on Ballymun criminal Derek ‘Bottler’ Devoy.

However, the Sunday World reports that gardai now believe his attempted murder was part of top-secret 'dark ops' sanctioned by his one-time friend, mob boss Daniel Kinahan.

Lynch has been lying low and has pulled away from all his old comrades in the gang in the past few years after gardai believe he learned the truth of his brush with death.

Lynch’s father Gerard ‘Bra’ Brady was once a close pal of godfather Christy Kinahan, who lived in the Oliver Bond flats for years, while Greg grew up with Daniel and his brother Christopher Jnr.

Senior gardai believe Lynch was meant to be killed the day he was shot in the face outside a north Dublin pub in October 2013 and that it was a miracle he survived.

As Lynch recovered from his injuries, his cartel associates told him they had established that drug dealer ‘Bottler’ Devoy was responsible as he was hoping to muscle in on his turf. As a direct result, gardai believe, his brother ‘Mad’ Mickey Devoy was murdered in January 2015.

For months, associates of Lynch were convinced they had got the right man when they killed Devoy. However, it’s understood that after the Regency Hotel attack and the split in the Kinahan gang, Lynch was told that it was his own who had tried to kill him.

He was told that ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson, another of his childhood friends, had taken against him for becoming close to a female associate.

He went to Daniel Kinahan and asked for permission to take out Lynch, and it is believed he sanctioned the hit, although it is unclear why he would allow the removal of one of his best dealers.