Craic Clothing takes range off sale after ‘Team Hutch’ and ‘Team Kinahan’ branding was criticised for ‘celebrating’ deadly feud

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

An online clothing company has been forced to pull a range of T-shirts and hoodies that “celebrated” the two Irish crime gangs involved in the biggest feud in the country’s history.

Craic Clothing has apologised for its designs branded with the slogans “Team Hutch” and “Team Kinahan” and admitted the items were a “stupid idea”.

Gerry “the Monk” Hutch and Christy Kinahan are the leaders of two rival factions that have been engaged in a deadly turf war since a highly publicised gun attack at a weigh-in for a boxing bout in north Dublin in early 2016. Twelve people have died in the violence.

The brother of Veronica Guerin, the investigative journalist murdered 21 years ago on the orders of another Dublin crime figure, denounced the clothing range as “cynical and immoral”.

Irish-based Craic Clothing is a division of the German online retailer Spreadshirt.

Its “Team Hutch” range depicted a knuckleduster with the words “Old Skool Motherfucker” and “Northside” above. The “Team Kinahan” clothing contained the slogan “Cartel Motherfucker” accompanied by an Uzi sub-machine gun.

Before withdrawing the range, the company issued advice to those who had bought the designs. “Craic Clothing takes no responsibility if you’re stupid enough to wear this around town and get ‘injured’,” the advice said.

The feud between the Hutch and Kinahan gangs began in September 2015 when Gerry Hutch’s nephew Gary Hutch was shot dead on Spain’s Costa del Sol. Hutch blamed members of the Kinahan cartel for killing his nephew and swore revenge.

In February 2016 gunmen loyal to Hutch stormed into the Regency hotel on the road to Dublin airport and tried to wipe out members of the Kinahan gang, who were attending a weigh-in for a major boxing bout. Some of the attackers, who carried AK-47 rifles and wore fake Irish police security bibs, were seen on CCTV breaking into the hotel.

One member of the Kinahan gang, David Byrne, was shot dead during the attack.

Guerin’s brother, Jimmy Guerin, said the fact a company could bring out a clothing range related to the feud “showed how Irish society has become immune to the horrors of gangland”.

“There are parts of Irish society that have become immune to the slaughter and misery these gangs are wreaking across Dublin and further afield,” Guerin said. “We are now in a situation like places in the United States where gangs’ exploits are celebrated rather than condemned.”