CRIMELORD GETS EL OUT OF IRELAND; Real IRA targets trafficker.
Byline: CATHAL McMAHON
A CRIME godfather has fled to Spain after he uncovered a plot to kill him.
International drug trafficker Hugh Irwin travelled to his native Sligo in June after spending up to four years abroad.
But the Irish Daily Mirror can reveal the 33-year-old fled the North West in recent days after clashing with a Real IRA gang.
A Republican source revealed the dissident gang were planning to take out the dad of eight.
He said: "Hughie was back attempting to throw his weight around but hightailed it to Lanzarote on Tuesday. "Gardai warned him his life was in danger. He was told he was being monitored.
"The assassination plot was at an advanced stage of planning so he probably made the right choice."
Last year a judge ordered Irwin to hand over a boat, an ice-cream van and almost EUR90,000 in cash to the Criminal Assets Bureau.
Irwin is largely based in the holiday island of Lanzarote where he controls an international drug network that has flooded the North West of Ireland with cocaine and heroin.
His brother Patrick, 30, is serving seven years in jail after he was nabbed with EUR55,000 worth of cash and almost a kilo of cocaine. One of their associates Martin "Butch" Beirne from Boyle in Roscommon died in Venezuela earlier this year after he ingested up to 90 pellets of cocaine.
The drug mule was planning to transport the drugs back to Europe for the gang. Associates of Hughie and Patrick Irwin are believed to have carried out the gangland murders of traveller criminal Hughie McGinley in 2005 and robber David Lynch in 2008.
The dissident gang is the biggest challenge to their empire since Garda clampdown Operation Golf in 2008. This small Real IRA gang has close links to the Dublin branch of the terror mob.
Irwin is not the first drug dealer to be targetted by dissidents.
Last month Barry Young, 28, from Cranmore, Sligo, who was convicted of having drugs for sale or supply, was forced to give the Real IRA thousands.
He was ordered not to sell drugs in the town and warned he would be killed if he was spotted dealing.
