The long-running Doneraile murder trial concluded on Thursday with a 17-year-old found guilty of the murder of Barry Daly following a retrial at the Central Criminal Court in Cork.
The unanimous verdict was returned by a jury of seven women and five men at 2.15pm, following seven hours and 29 minutes of deliberations.
The teenager had pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter.
The retrial began shortly after the conclusion of the first trial, which commenced on June 3 before a different jury.
During those proceedings, Alex Deady, 20, of Glenview, Convent Road, Doneraile, Co Cork, was convicted of murdering Barry Daly in the front garden of his home at Rockview Terrace, Doneraile.
A 16-year-old co-accused was also convicted of manslaughter, having pleaded guilty to that offence.
The 17-year-old, who admitted manslaughter but denied murder, was also tried during the first proceedings. However, the jury was unable to reach a verdict on the murder charge against him, necessitating a retrial.
The second jury unanimously found him guilty of murder.
One of the reasons for expediting the retrial was the accused’s age. He is due to turn 18 later this year, after which different sentencing provisions would apply. Under Irish law, he remains a child until his 18th birthday.
Throughout both trials, jurors were reminded that they must not consider the potential sentence when reaching their verdict.
Sentencing of all three convicted men was adjourned until Friday.
The Daly family is expected to have an opportunity to deliver victim impact statements either on Friday or at a later date.
Before the verdict was delivered, Barry Daly’s partner, Katie O’Reilly, became visibly upset in court and continued to weep as the jury’s verdict was announced.
The teenager showed no visible reaction.
During the trial, Ms O’Reilly described how Mr Daly had been in mighty form while on a week’s holiday and after winning €600 on the Lotto.
She said he had intended to knock on their bedroom window when he returned home in the early hours of October 12, 2025, but instead she heard shouting outside.
“I am going to kill you,” she recalled hearing one male voice say, while she also heard Mr Daly shouting: “Stop.”
She said to herself, “I hope to God that is not Barry.”
She said, “I could hear the bangs like someone getting whacked of something. They were horrible full force bangs of someone.”
She ran out to Barry. There was blood everywhere, she said.
“I lay down by him. I knew he was dead. I checked for a pulse. I lay down beside him. I kept begging him to come back. I was lying beside Barry for maybe two minutes.”
Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster told the court: “The body was lying on the back with a large amount of blood staining present in the face and pooling of blood under the head.”
Nearby in the garden, she said, the head of a wedge-type golf club was found broken approximately one foot up the shaft.
“There was very severe facial trauma and it would have caused an awful lot of bleeding into the mouth, aspirated into the lungs – you cannot breath and that ultimately leads to death.”
Dr Bolster said she found no offensive injuries, such as skinned knuckles, or defensive injuries, including marks to the forearms.
Much of the trial focused on events in Main Street, Doneraile, before the fatal assault.
The court heard evidence of an altercation after closing time, during which Barry Daly struck Alex Deady’s girlfriend, Rachel O’Kelly, in the mouth.
Ms O’Kelly said the blow was deliberate, while Mr Daly maintained it was accidental. Witnesses gave differing accounts as to whether it was intentional.
Senior counsel for the prosecution, Lorcan Staines, said what had happened in the town was ultimately irrelevant to the murder charge.
The court also heard evidence that the three accused had armed themselves with golf clubs before travelling to Mr Daly’s home, despite unsuccessful attempts by others to stop them.
The 17-year-old defendant said: “We were going up, expecting a fight, to be honest. No intention to kill… There was no plan.”
His counsel, Alice Fawsitt SC, said the essence of her client’s account during more than 11 hours of Garda interviews could be summarised as: “I went and got golfclubs. I went with (Alex) to the house. Barry Daly came out from behind a pillar, he swung at me, I ducked, Alex hit him.”
Alex Deady gave a broadly similar account in Garda interviews.
Asked where he struck Mr Daly, Deady indicated the left side of his head.
“I had no intention of killing him,” he said.
When it was put to him that he had struck Mr Daly with a golf club, he replied: “He was stumbling – one, two steps and he went down. He was still saying fuck. Oh man, it wasn’t like he was out on the ground. He was still saying fuck you, he was moving. We left. We just ran. I got such a fright. I don’t even know, oh man, it was all just a blur.”