He was gangland’s Capo dei Capi - a mentor and teacher to violent younger criminals and a powerful godfather who held a key position in Ireland’s criminal underworld.
In life, he paved the way for others as one of the first bosses on a sophisticated organised crime group. He mixed with paramilitaries and criminals and became the country’s first cocaine cowboy when he was caught trying to set up a mule smuggling route between Miami and Dublin.
And even in death, he holds a unique position in gangland as his murder marked a changing of the guard and a moment when the old order made way for the new.
In Part Three of the Life and Crimes of Eamon Kelly we look at his work as a mentor and the ambitious dissidents who ruined it all.