Shadows of Éire | An Irish True Crime Podcast
Sep 24, 2026 · 33 min · 10 segments
This episode explores the tragic 2007 St. Stephen’s Night killing of Barry Maguire in Ashbourne, Co. Meath, detailing how a fatal street altercation escalated into localized pipe-bomb intimidation and…
Tim WarburtonHost
To understand how a tragedy like this transforms a town, you have to understand the town itself as it was in late 2007.
For decades, it was a relatively small, tight-knit commuter town, surrounded by flat, fertile agricultural land.
But during the Celtic Tiger years of the late 90s and early 2000s, Ashburn underwent a massive transformation.
New housing developments sprouted up rapidly to accommodate young families moving out from the capital.
It was a place where people came to build quiet, predictable lives, raise children and escape the heavier urban pressures of Dublin city.
The Milltown estate was one of these settled, multi-generational neighborhoods.
It was a place where neighbors knew each other, where children played on the green areas, and where winter nights were typically silent.
It is a small cul-de-sac and is more like a scattering of extended family than a normal housing estate.
To those who knew him, he wasn't someone who belonged to the periphery of the criminal underworld.
He was a young man with his whole life ahead of him, popular, hardworking, and deeply rooted in his local circle of friends.
He was known for his loyalty, his easygoing personality, and a distinct lack of malice.
It is the night when young people who have scattered for college or work return to their hometowns to meet up in the local pubs, share stories and celebrate the end of another year.
On the evening of December the 25th and into the 26th, Ashburn's pubs were packed with exactly this kind of energy.
Barry Maguire was out with his friends, including a young man named Damian Carty.
They were doing what thousands of other 20-somethings across the country were doing, enjoying the holidays, laughing, and walking home together through the cold night air as the venues began to close their doors.
But as the bars emptied out into the freezing small hours of December 26, two worlds were about to collide on the roads of Ashburn, because moving through the same space that night were two individuals whose paths were already marked by volatility, a 22-year-old named Alan Dunahoo and a 22-year-old Dublin native named Derek Hutch.
To the wider public at that exact moment, the name Derek Hutch didn't carry the notorious weight it does today.
He was a young man with a growing rap sheet, already holding convictions for firearms offences and dozens of minor infractions, but he was not yet a household name.
He was, however, deeply connected to a family legacy that was quietly cementing its grip on the criminal structures of inner-city Dublin.
To understand how a tragedy like this transforms a town, you have to understand the town itself as it was in late 2007.
For decades, it was a relatively small, tight-knit commuter town, surrounded by flat, fertile agricultural land.
But during the Celtic Tiger years of the late 90s and early 2000s, Ashburn underwent a massive transformation.
New housing developments sprouted up rapidly to accommodate young families moving out from the capital.
It was a place where people came to build quiet, predictable lives, raise children and escape the heavier urban pressures of Dublin city.
The Milltown estate was one of these settled, multi-generational neighborhoods.
It was a place where neighbors knew each other, where children played on the green areas, and where winter nights were typically silent.
It is a small cul-de-sac and is more like a scattering of extended family than a normal housing estate.
To those who knew him, he wasn't someone who belonged to the periphery of the criminal underworld.
He was a young man with his whole life ahead of him, popular, hardworking, and deeply rooted in his local circle of friends.
He was known for his loyalty, his easygoing personality, and a distinct lack of malice.
It is the night when young people who have scattered for college or work return to their hometowns to meet up in the local pubs, share stories and celebrate the end of another year.
On the evening of December the 25th and into the 26th, Ashburn's pubs were packed with exactly this kind of energy.
Barry Maguire was out with his friends, including a young man named Damian Carty.
They were doing what thousands of other 20-somethings across the country were doing, enjoying the holidays, laughing, and walking home together through the cold night air as the venues began to close their doors.
But as the bars emptied out into the freezing small hours of December 26, two worlds were about to collide on the roads of Ashburn, because moving through the same space that night were two individuals whose paths were already marked by volatility, a 22-year-old named Alan Dunahoo and a 22-year-old Dublin native named Derek Hutch.
To the wider public at that exact moment, the name Derek Hutch didn't carry the notorious weight it does today.
He was a young man with a growing rap sheet, already holding convictions for firearms offences and dozens of minor infractions, but he was not yet a household name.
He was, however, deeply connected to a family legacy that was quietly cementing its grip on the criminal structures of inner-city Dublin.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
