Crime World
Episode 1337: Criminal who battered Devon Hennessy is behind knife-point hostage situation in jail
07 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What triggered the hostage situation in the Irish prison?
The shouting and roaring was obviously heard by the prison officers. They have a system in place for handling incidents like this. Straight away, the governor would have been informed and officers would have been brought in to try and negotiate with Sean Powell. That didn't work in this case, although they could hear him threatening the two prisoners inside the cell.
He wasn't receptive to efforts to negotiate with him. So a decision was made to shut down the entire prison.
I'm Nicola Tallent and this is Crime World, a podcast about criminals, drugs and the sins of the underworld. If you like this podcast and want to learn more about crime, go to our new website www.crimeworld.com for stories, extras and podcast subscriber specials. A brutal hostage scenario in an Irish prison is averted when skilled prison officers stand down the threat.
Today, I'm talking with Patrick O'Connell and you're listening to Crime World, a podcast from crimeworld.com. So Pat, how does a prison handle a situation like this that kicked off when Sean Powell threatened two other prisoners, cellmates with shivs, boiled up water, added sugar to it for maximum damage to the skin and pretty much went wild?
How is that situation handled in such a confined, claustrophobic place as a prison is?
Yeah, well, in the case involving Sean Powell, it was handled extremely effectively. There was two prisoners in that cell with him who very much felt that they were in danger of being seriously injured, if not killed.
And it was brought to a conclusion where Sean Powell was effectively disarmed and these two men escaped without serious injury, other than the trauma that they quite obviously endured. Going back, I suppose, to what happened, this was on Monday of last week on the B-Wing in Castlebury Prison. Sean Powell is a 34-year-old.
He'd be regarded as a somewhat volatile prisoner before this point, but basically he barricaded the door of his cell. He'd armed himself with a number of blighted weapons. Made with what? Well basically these are called shivs. They're where you attach razor blades to a plastic item and then you can use it to slash and inflict severe injuries on other prisoners. So he barricaded the door.
He'd armed himself with these shivs. He tied up the other two prisoners in the cell and basically was threatening them.
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Chapter 2: How do prison officers respond to hostage scenarios?
He would be somebody who's been before the courts on a number of occasions. I think he's got in the region of 24 previous convictions for things like robbery, for possession of implements. Many of those would be for driving offences as well. Right. But he's somebody that we have come across in the past.
We ran a story last October that he had been involved in an altercation with Devin Hennessy inside Mount Joey prison. Devin Hennessy would obviously be one of the Hennessy mob from out in Blanchardstown. He'd be somebody who'd be
Was he on remand at that stage in relation to the torture of the man who was branded?
Yeah, he would have been in prison. He was actually in prison in connection with another crime, but he'd actually been charged in connection with the torture attack on Barry Moore. So last July, Devin Hennessy would have pleaded guilty in connection with that attack. So he was in prison awaiting sentence, but he would have already pleaded guilty to that at that stage.
So basically there was an incident in the yard in Mount Joy prison where you had Sean Powell and Devin Hennessey come to blows. And Sean Powell came off the better of that. He left Devin Hennessey with a suspected broken nose. And it was in the wake of that incident that Sean Powell would have been moved from Mount Joy prison
He was originally moved from Mountjoy to the Midlands, but subsequently he was moved from the Midlands up to Castlereagh, where it appears he was unhappy to be.
And this is why he staged this attack, well, essentially this threatening assault on his cellmates. Back to the Hennessys there for a second. What's their standing in the prison? Are they, I know initially when they went in, there was kind of, they weren't accepted on certain wings and they were, are they tough? Are they seen as being a crew that you'd be fearful of or are they?
Well, they've split them up. And they've split them up for quite obvious reasons. I mean, they've seen previously the damage to keeping large numbers of the Kenan cartel in Mount Joy. It gave rise to trafficking routes and all that kind of thing. So when it comes to the Hennessys, the five members of the Hennessy group who were charged over Barrymore, the two of the...
Two of them are over in, I think in Clover Hill. There's one in Wheatfield, one in Mount Joy and one down in Port Leash. So they have split them up. Like would they, when they went in, would people have been fearful? Would other inmates have been fearful and showed them respect? Not to the degree that we might have thought.
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Chapter 3: What tactics did Sean Powell use during the hostage situation?
I even remember looking at it myself and you had to just look away, didn't you?
It was just... Well, I suppose it also had a... Like, I mean, it also sped up the demise of the Hennessy mob in Blanchardstown. I mean, the guards, you know, to be fair, had been taking serious action against them all along. They had been, you know... It's not an easy thing to take down a grouping like that.
You saw the amount of effort that had to go into doing it down in Limerick, where huge resources had been drafted to confront the gangs that were going on down there. soon after what happened to Barrymore happened, the guards went in. Like it was one of the rare occasions that I can remember where the actual raids, there was video taken of them and that was put out subsequently by the Gardaí.
I mean, they went in, they went in heavy, they took these guys out of the community, locked them up. Like as we've seen, every effort was made to prosecute them for what they had done. I mean, the case was dealt with in the special criminal court, which shows you, you know, the manner in which the state was dealing with this.
Viewed them as well, yeah.
So.
John Powell and others like him who create these scenarios in prisons, I mean, it must be one of the hardest jobs in the world, is it, prison officer? I personally, I think, I mean, how in the name of God do you deal with something like that kicking off like on a normal day's
Yeah, I think it's an extremely difficult job. Very difficult job. Like the guys who do that, you know, like, you know, hats off to them. It really is a job that maybe, you know, doesn't get the recognition it deserves from the point of view.
These guys go in every morning, they're spending their days behind bars with, you know, a range of people who have been put there primarily to keep the community at large safe.
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