You're listening to the mens rea podcast, and this is the story of Brian Fitzgerald.

The turn of the millennium in Ireland was a watershed moment for many. The sustained economic

boom that prevailed towards the end of the 90s had caused a marked shift in society, and

with jobs and money and plentiful supply, the Irish population reveled in their new

found wealth. Everything seemed to be in excess, and many embraced this flagrant with gusto as

they enjoyed the spoils of the dizzying growth that the economy was seeing. With the Celtic tiger

and full swing, the country saw a huge increase in recreational drug use. There was an abundance of

disposable income, and this coupled with the intensifying party lifestyle, bred a new type of drug

user, the middle-class recreational user, whose predominant drug of choice was cocaine. The use

of party drug soared, and as dealers rose to meet the demand, so too came a spike in gang-related

activity and turf wars. Desperate to claim their slice of the bounty a new type of gangster was

emerging, a harder, more dangerous element than Irish society had ever seen. Gun use spiraled,

and cold-blooded executions became commonplace among the criminal underbelly, and as these

hardened criminals vied for every inch of ground that they could gain, the stakes were raised,

and the violence sometimes seeped out into the innocent public. As a nightclub bancer, Brian Fitzgerald

was all too familiar with the booming drug trade in Limerick City. In his book Mean Streets,

Barry Duggan detailed how Brian had grown up on the north side of the city,

attending the local technical institute before getting a job in the nearby crops factory.

However, when the factory closed in 1998, Brian found himself unemployed after 11 years of service,

and his strong physique ultimately led him to nighttime security work across a number of

Limerick bars and nightclubs. He eventually landed in Doxbar and Nightclub where he was employed

as a security manager. By 2002, the 34-year-old had settled into a nice life.

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