There was time in the early 2000s when Jaws was confident enough in his reputation as a hardened gangster to let rip in the High Court when Liam had been refused bail.
One of his sons David was shot dead at the Regency Hotel attack in 2016 while another Liam is facing trial and a long sentence in the UK for a weapons conspiracy.
His son-in-law Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh his serving 21-years in England while his nephew Liam Roe passed away as a result of illness just last month.
Another nephew who played a key role in the gang is serving a life sentence.
Suddenly, there is very little left of the once fearsome Byrne Organised Crime Group.
There was time in the early 2000s when ‘Jaws’ was confident enough in his reputation as a hardened gangster to let rip in the High Court when Liam had been refused bail.
Furious at the decision he began roaring at lawyers, who took cover as the judge fled the chamber.
Bomber and Jaws are suspected to have subsequently launched one of the worst cases of witness intimidation as Liam was prosecuted and eventually jailed for six years for a baseball bat attack on a man.
The victim had to go into hiding as a result of death threats some of which were also directed at a detective involved in the case.
Jaws had been an associate of Martin ‘The General’ Cahill and had a reputation as a ‘blagger’ – an armed robber who carried out bank heists.
He had also been known for being involved in counterfeiting and fraud.
Liam and David followed their father’s criminal pedigree and forged their own reputations for violence as they carved out a territory for themselves.
The father’s connections clearly helped matters.
In 2008, the Sunday World photographed Jaws at Peter ‘Fatso’ Mitchell’s bar on the Costa del Sol.
The Paparazzi bar had been where the underworld shakers and others from the UK and Ireland had been gathering to cut drug deals.
Jaws is believed to have been setting up drugs deals for the gang his nephew Roe was involved with at the time.
Jaws and Liam were spotted in a Mercedes A140 pulling up to Mitchell’s pub on one occasion.
The Byrne family continued to do very well.
This was in no doubt helped by the rise of Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh, who was married to Jaws’ daughter Joanne, through the ranks of the Kinahan Cartel.
The Byrne brothers were regularly spotted in top-end vehicles while Bomber’s car business seemed to provide endless profits.
Jaws was among those of the Dublin underworld world who got prime seats at the Matthew Macklin bout in the 3Arena where Daniel Kinahan was ringside.
He also attended parties in New York from which some photos were posted on social media.
There had been some setbacks such as when Jaws had been forced to make settlements with the Criminal Assets Bureau.
In November 2002, he had to cough up €43,353 in social welfare payments that he had not been entitled to receive.
He also paid the Revenue Commissioners €208,400 after Revenue and CAB issued him with a tax assessment of €378,612 in 2004.
Some of the assessment was paid from €22,000 in cash seized at his home in 2001.
As a result of another raid by CAB in 2017, Jaws later applied to the High Court seeking the return of a Rolex Oyster Perpetual watch worth €35,000 which had been seized.
But it was Gary Hutch’s murder in Spain in 2015 that marked the beginning of the end of the Byrne Organised Crime Group.
The lethal feud Kinahan Hutch feud saw Jaws’ son David killed just a few months later in February 2017 at the Regency Hotel.
Another close associate, Sean McGovern who rose to the side of Cartel boss Daniel Kinahan was lucky to escape after being shot and wounded.
Jaws and his wife Sadie attended court when Patrick Hutch Jnr was charged with the murder and went on trial at the Special Criminal Court.
Sadie complained to the waiting media when the case against Hutch collapsed.
Then in 2022 ,during the trial of Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch for the same murder the couple were in the public gallery every day.
Sadie left, but Jaws sat grim-faced when images of his son’s murder were shown in court and when a pathologist went through graphic details of the injuries he suffered.
The 77-year-old is believed to have passed away in hospital as a result of kidney problems and is likely to be laid to rest near his son David at Mount Jerome Cemetery in South Dublin.
