Police barrier outside the Regency Hotel in Dublin following a fatal shooting at a weigh-in on Friday. Photo: Caroline Quinn/AFP-Getty Images.

Irish nationalists have told the BBC they were responsible for the shooting on Friday at a Dublin weigh-in that killed one bystander and seriously injured two others, asserting it was retribution for the fatal shooting of Alan Ryan, a militant nationalist, in 2012.

“Although [Ryan] was not a member of our organisation, we are not going to stand back and allow drug dealers and criminals to target republicans,” a man claiming to represent leadership of the Continuity IRA, which is against British control of Northern Ireland, told the BBC in a statement. “This will not be an isolated incident. Continuity IRA units have been authorised to carry out further operations. More drug dealers and criminals will be targeted. The Continuity IRA will carry out further military operations.”

A normally routine weigh-in on Friday at the Regency Hotel was shattered when gunmen dressed as special forces in flak jackets armed with automatic weapons showered the area with bullets ahead of a main event between Dublin’s Jamie Kavanagh and Antonio Joao of Portugal for the World Boxing Organization European lightweight championship.

The sound of a child asking for his father, “Daddy, Daddy help me! What happened, Daddy?” can be heard in chilling audio of the incident captured by a local television feed.

The card, scheduled for Saturday and dubbed “Clash of the Clans” that was to be shown on Box Nation Pay-Per-View at Dublin’s National Stadium, was subsequently canceled.

“Anyone asking I’m OK!,” Jamie Kavanagh tweeted on Friday. “Thanks you for asking. I was lucky today is all I can sayÔǪ”

The police believe that as many as six were involved in the attack on Friday, including an assailant who was dressed as a woman with a dress and blond wig and another who was the getaway driver, according to the BBC.

The man who was killed at the weigh-in was identified as David Byrne, a 33-year-old from Raleigh Square.

RT├ë, Ireland’s National television and radio broadcaster, reported that Byrne is familiar to local police and has been questioned for alleged ties to organized crime, according to a story by the BBC.

The Guardian describes Byrne as a “known soldier of a Costa del Sol-based Dublin gangster” in the South of Spain.

According to the International Business Times, the promoter of the card was “MGM Marbella, a stable of boxers run by Matt Macklin. One of Macklin’s friends is Daniel Kinahan, an alleged member of the Kinahan crime syndicate. It was outside his Spanish villa that retired boxer Jamie Moore was shot in 2014.”

The father of Kavanagh was murdered in Spain in 2014, according to The Guardian. Gerard Kavanagh was a “known money collector for the Spanish-based Irish drug lord Christy Kinahan,” The Guardian wrote. Daniel Kinahan is the son of Christy Kinahan.

The Irish News has described Friday’s incident as a “gang war shooting.”

Furthermore, “security sources in the Irish capital” think the shooting was part of a gangland war between the “Costa del Sol-based Irish gangster Christy Kinahan and his rival, the north Dublin criminal known as The Monk” instead of Continuity IRA, the Guardian is reporting.

The van apparently used in the escape on Friday was later found completely charred in Dublin’s Marino district, according to the BBC.

“Positive week in front of me & negativity behind me,” Kavanagh tweeted on Monday. “Have time to think & move on with everything. Hope to have news soon & future plans!”

Mitch Abramson can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter at @Mabramson13

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