MICK ALWAYS THERE..

Award-winning photographer at heart of the stories.

- MICHAEL O'TOOLE

OUR colleague and friend Mick O'Neill was one of Ireland's best known and most respected photojournalists.

He worked with us for more than 20 years and captured some of the most memorable images ever taken in Ireland.

Right up until two days before his tragic death in an accident in his native Dublin on Saturday, he was working away, striving to get the best photographs for The Star and the Irish Mirror.

Just last week, he photographed our Crime Correspondent Paul Healy in a moving interview with Ryan Casey, the partner of murdered Offaly teacher Ashling Murphy.

In April of this year, he produced what is undoubtedly the news photograph of the year - when he snapped this powerful image of murder suspect Michael Kelley using an axe to chop wood in Kenmare, Co Kerry.

It was taken on the farm of then missing farmer Michael Gaine.

I was standing beside him with a few others - but Mick was the only one of us who heard the sound of wood being chopped.

He took out his long lens and waited patiently before Kelley appeared in the distance - and he framed the shot perfectly.

He also shot exclusive images of Kelley in May after he had been released from Garda custody.

MURDER

The former US Marine confirmed to Paul he was a suspect for the murder of Mr Gaine - but denied any involve-pictures went around the world.

He would no doubt have won an award for that axe pic - like the gong he got earlier this year for his shot of a family caught up in a wave in Howth, Co Dublin.

In February 2016, he took to the skies of Dublin in a light plane and captured remarkable images of the funeral cortege of Kinahan enforcer David Byrne, shot dead by the Hutch mob in the gun attack on the Regency Airport Hotel.

That killing sparked a bloody spree of revenge by the Kinahan cartel-and Mick was central to our coverage of the feud and the Garda response to it.