The melee left two prison officers and two inmates being hospitalised.
Sources said that violence erupted on the heavily overcrowded landing on Sunday last involving three separate factions all vying for control of the wing’s drug trade.
It is understood that approximately 80 prisoners are crammed onto the landing, which was originally designed to hold approximately 40.
One of the factions is understood to have been led by Carlow thug Stephen Farrell while another prisoner to be disciplined and shipped out to Wheatfield Prison in Dublin is armed raider Derek Leigh from Athy.
Midlands Prison
During the melee involving more than a dozen prisoners, brush handles were used as weapons, with two prison officers – an older male guard and a young female – being injured as they tried to get the situation under control.
It is understood the male officer took several blows while the female officer sustained a head injury. Two prisoners were also injured.
These were convicted arsonist John O’Neill, from Battery Heights, Athlone, and Edenderry man Philip Perry, who was received a six month sentence in March for possession of cocaine for sale and supply.
It was initially feared that O’Neill’s ear had been bitten off during the melee but sources said since it appeared to be a laceration rather than a bite.
Today’s News in 90 Seconds – 18th August
All four were released from hospital later in the day.
Sources said it is believed a large quantity of drugs, including Spice, had made it onto the landing following visits the previous day and this was the catalyst for the violence.
It is also understood that Naloxone, a medicine that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose, was used to treat several prisoners later in the day as they displayed symptoms consistent with Spice overdose.
“The level of overcrowding on the wing combined with the sudden arrival of large quantities of drugs is a very bad mix,” a source told the Sunday World.
Daniel Murtagh.
“Prison officers have to be constantly aware now that things can turn bad at any moment.
“You read these articles about overcrowding but what happened last Sunday is the reality of where these numbers are leading us.
“Throw drugs in the mix and prisoners who are protecting their patch and it’s a very dangerous combination
One of the suspected orchestrators of the violence, Stephen Farrell, has long been regarded by officers in the Midlands Prison as a dangerous and volatile prisoner.
In January of 2023, Farrell and an associate, Brendan O’Neill, with addresses in Mountmellick, Laois and Tullamore, were responsible for carrying out an attack on innocent young mum Nadine Lott’s killer Daniel Murtagh
Farrell then punched Murtagh twice in the head before O’Neill used a shiv – a razor melted into a toothbrush handle – to slice the killer’s face open.
Following that attack, Murtagh was rushed to Portlaoise Hospital for treatment.
At the time, Farrell (32) was serving an 18-month prison sentence for a host of thefts in the county in March the previous year.
Prior to the attack on Murtagh, the pair had rowed with Kinahan Cartel gangster Gary Thompson – regarded as a close pal of Daniel Murtagh – a couple of weeks earlier.
Thompson was one of three men caught “red-handed” in a Kinahan Cartel plot to carry out the “execution style” murder of Patsy Hutch at the height of the Kinahan feud related to a struggle for power within the jail, a source said.
“Thompson and Murtagh would see themselves as big men, but Farrell and O’Neill are locals and they view the Midlands as home territory,” a source said at the time.
Derek Leigh, from Athy, also P19’d (disciplined) over Sunday’s violence, is currently serving a nine-year-sentence, handed down in February last year, over a heist at the Top filling station in Athy in 2017.
Gary Thompson
Leigh, who was taken to the Midlands Hospital in February after displaying symptoms consistent with a spice overdose, has 44 previous convictions including six since the robbery in 2017 and was on bail on different charges at the time.
It included an arson conviction for which he got four years at Trim Circuit Court while he also got a three-month sentence in Belfast for possession of Class A drugs.
Other convictions included making threats and burglary and minor road traffic offences.
His defence counsel said that Leigh had a cocaine addiction for six years at the time of the robbery but is now off drugs.
Contacted this week, a spokesperson for the Irish Prison Service “does not comment on individual prisoner cases or security and operational matters.”