WE LOOK BACK AT KEY EVENTS OF 'GANGLAND IRELAND' IN 2025

LATE on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 28, an Air Corps Casa C295 plane sped along a baking hot runway before smoothly taking off and soaring into the sky.

- BY MICHAEL O'TOOLE Crime Reporter of the Year

The €120million plane had been delivered to the Air Corps almost two years earlier and was designed as a maritime patrol aircraft.

Its normal mission is patrolling the seas around Ireland, watching out for rogue trawlers, Russian spy ships - and boats trying to smuggle cocaine into the country.

But that day the plane and its crew were on no ordinary mission.

Instead, they were starting off on a 7,600km journey from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates - bringing one of Ireland's most wanted men home to Ireland to face justice.

Dubliner Sean McGovern, a key lieutenant of Irish cartel boss Daniel Kinahan, was flanked by armed Garda detectives during the 24-hour flight that brought him back to his hometown.

Within minutes of landing at the Casement Aerodrome, the HQ of the Air Corps in Baldonnel, south Co Dublin, the 39-year-old was arrested, charged with a gun murder and four other serious offences and whisked to the Special Criminal Court.

The high-speed journey from Baldonnel to the court in central Dublin took just 14 minutes - but had been years in the making.

Gardai had been hunting for McGovern, accused by US authorities of being a key leader in the Kinahan gang, ever since the December 2016 murder in Clondalkin of Noel Kirwan.

Mr Kirwan, 62, was gunned down by the cartel at the height of the Kinahan/Hutch feud - a war that left as many as 18 men dead.

Gardai believe the cartel murdered him because he was seen with top target Gerry “The Monk” Hutch at the funeral of his brother Eddie Hutch, 58, in February 2016.

Gardai gathered enough evidence to prosecute McGovern for the murder and other offences - but he was out of reach in Dubai, which had no extradition treaty with Ireland.