Murder of an Irishman abroad: killing of Tipperary chef Shaun Brady leaves Kansas City’s Irish community bereft

In Kansas City, they will still hold the Sunday morning Mass that has become part of the annual Kansas City Irish Fest programme, but the breakfast follow-up has been cancelled as a mark of respect to the absent chef.

The fatal shooting on Wednesday of Shaun Brady, the 44-year-old Co Tipperary native who had become a cherished and singular member of the Irish-American community in the city, has left his friends and colleagues bereft.

The annual Irish Fest weekend attracts more than 60,000 people to the Missouri city and Brady was killed even as the early festivalgoers began to arrive.

“It is devastating,” says Liz O’Boyle, a Waterford woman who has lived in Kansas City for 39 years.

“We are completely at a loss and so cut up over it. Going to Shaun’s restaurant was home away from home. There is a lot of anger along with the grief we are holding because he was such a gem of a guy – a great father, husband, friend, comrade.”

The murder leaves many in the Irish community in Kansas in the strange situation in which they will simultaneously mourn his death, celebrate his life and get on with the necessary business of completing another successful festival.

“Shaun was such a big personality,” says Ronan Collins, a Dublin native who has lived in Kansas City for almost 30 years.

“He instigated the Sunday morning breakfast at the Irish Fest. Shaun wanted to serve authentic Irish food, and he could do anything from the high end to the sherry trifle that your mum would make. He would make dishes that he knew people would enjoy, almost comfort food, but he could also turn out high cuisine.

Collins says Brady had “a very good grounding from the pub scene through to high-end restaurants in Ireland. And he always put on a great show and a great spread for visitors, which helped us organising these events. He met everyone and they all love him”.

Understandably, many of Brady’s friends speak about him in the present tense. The details of his death illuminate the shocking rise in sporadic gun violence that has stalked Kansas City.

According to police reports, Brady was carrying rubbish out of Brady’s KC, the popular bar and restaurant he ran with Graham Ferris, on late Wednesday afternoon when he saw a group of people by a parked car. It is believed he had some sort of interaction with them and was shot several times.

Two teenagers were subsequently arrested.

Brady was 44 and grew up in Nenagh before moving to the United States. He was married to Kate, who is from Wichita and whom he met while she was travelling in Ireland. The couple moved from Chicago to Kansas City in 2013 and have two children, Seamus (12) and Mary (10).

“Shaun was a vibrant person with a colourful vocabulary,” says Pat O’Neill, another Irish Fest organiser and the author of From The Bottom Up, an authoritative account of the Irish influence in Kansas City.

“He wouldn’t argue with that, I don’t think. People are sometimes surprised to learn that we have such a large and active Irish-American and Irish-born community here. The Irish were the largest immigrant group to Kansas City, and we have a lot of first-, second- and third-generation folks.”

O’Neill says that Shaun was “one of those who stood out because of his character”.

“He was funny and hard-working, and straight from the hip. But he had the softest heart. I mean, he helped so many of us through bereavement periods involving family. He was the first there with the store to give away food or accommodation at the restaurant. And he would tear up when someone in our community was lost or hurt. Those are my impressions of Shaun. He was a dear friend to a lot of us,” he says.

Many people first encountered Brady in his years working as a chef in the Ambassador hotel, where he acquired a reputation for flair and creativity. He eventually set up his own business with Ferris on 63rd in the Brookside area, which was thriving.

Guests to the annual September jamboree, from musicians to Irish public figures such as comedian Ardal O’Hanlon and former footballer and businessman Niall Quinn, all encountered the chef as festival invitees. The former Republic of Ireland footballer recalled a wonderful evening spent in Brady’s KC during which they video-called his family back in Tipperary.

“To me, on that visit, Shaun was everything great that an Irishman abroad could be,” Quinn told The Irish Times, paying tribute to the Tipperary man on Thursday evening.

“Warm, funny, caring and so proud of Nenagh. He had a picture of the original family home place on the wall and was so proud of it. This is such awful news to hear and hard to believe.”

The mayor of Kansas City, Quinton Lucas, had also known the Irishman and on Thursday released a statement to express his sadness.

“Like many in our community, I am heartbroken to learn of the death of Shaun Brady. I have met him, laughed with him, heard just a bit of his and his family’s story, and was inspired by the business and the community he was building in Kansas City,” said Lucas.

“I grieve for and express my sincerest condolences to his family and all who knew him,” he wrote in a post before acknowledging the spectre of crime and gun violence.

“More distress comes in knowing how he died – due to violence arising once more in our community.”

The mayor said that “for years now, but more acutely in recent months”, business owners in parts of the city, including the Brookside neighbourhood where Brady was killed, and “throughout too much of our city have expressed serious concerns about a rise in property and nuisance crimes plaguing their stores, their parking lots and their customers”.

Casual gun violence has afflicted Kansas City in recent years. Last year 180 people were murdered in a city of just over half a million. Shaun Brady was the 104th person to die this year.

“This has been the stereotypical hot summer and it seems to have spawned a lot of crime,” says Pat O’Neill.

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“[There are] car thefts nightly. Now crimes are occurring in the middle of the day with gangs of kids moving around stealing cars. It is putting some good pressure on the city to better support their police department, which is short of officers by hundreds.

“It is the tragic culmination of the summer. And people are angry with the city that this is going on and on.”

It is a bleak note in advance of a weekend that has long been established as a celebration of Irishness in a city that runs flush against the Kansas/Missouri borderline, and which is a proven attraction to visitors as a Labour Day weekend holiday.

“It is like a black cloud is going to be over us this weekend,” says O’Boyle.

“But Shaun wouldn’t want it that way. We will definitely be paying a tribute to Shaun and his loved ones left behind here.”