The girlfriend of a young man on trial for murder in Doneraile said the deceased man punched her in the mouth that night and added: \u201cIt was most definitely purposeful.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the murder trial opened last week the jury was told that there was some disagreement between witnesses as to whether the punch was deliberate or accidental.<\/p>\n
Today, on what was the third day of evidence in the Doneraile murder trial, Rachel O\u2019Kelly was in the witness box at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork.<\/p>\n
She said she is the girlfriend of 20-year-old Alex Deady of Glenview, Convent Road, Doneraile. He and two juveniles, aged 16 and 17, who cannot be named for legal reasons, are on trial charged with murdering 44-year-old postman, Barry Daly at Rockview Terrace in Doneraile on October 12 2025.<\/p>\n
Alex Deady and the 17-year-old pleaded not guilty to murder, but guilty to manslaughter. The 16-year-old simply pleaded not guilty to murder.<\/p>\n
The ages relate to the date of the incident.<\/p>\n
Ms O\u2019Kelly said she came out of Eily\u2019s bar on Main Street at closing time and might have been in conversation with people for a short time outside the pub.<\/p>\n
She said she was bopping around and there was someone playing guitar on a night when the town celebrated victory for the local team in the Junior B hurling final.<\/p>\n
But, she added: \u201cThere was definitely people that were angry, I don\u2019t know about fighting. This was just outside the pub after I left.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom Creed, senior counsel, for Alex Deady said: \u201cThere was a bit of tension in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms O\u2019Kelly said she thought Alex was still in the pub.<\/p>\n
Mr Creed said: \u201cYou remember looking up and seeing Barry Daly. When you looked and saw Barry Daly, can you let the ladies and gentlemen of the jury know what your impression was?\u201d<\/p>\n
Rachel O\u2019Kelly replied:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI am five-foot-four. I was definitely looking up at him. His pupils were most certainly dilated. He was looking at me with his mouth open, definitely angry. There was about ten seconds of eye contact. He hit me into the side of the face with his fist.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
Mr Creed said: \u201cIt has been said by a number of people that that was an accident (when he was intervening in an altercation)?\u201d<\/p>\n
The witness replied: \u201cI was not aware of any altercation I was in the middle of\u2026 It was most definitely purposeful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Creed clarified: \u201cPurposeful, intentional?\u201d The witness agreed and said that at the time she was bleeding from her gums and that she has had ongoing consultations with specialists about her jaw since.<\/p>\n
She said her brother Fionn was headbutted by another person with the deceased, seconds after she was punched. She agreed with Mr Creed\u2019s characterisation of both assaults being \u201calmost like a concerted attack\u201d.<\/p>\n
But as to why this might have occurred, she said, \u201cI have no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Creed suggested that her brother Fionn was incensed by what was happening and that \u201cAlex was equally incensed\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ms O\u2019Kelly said:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI would say he was angry but more than anything he was shocked.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
She added that Alex did not witness the assault on her.<\/p>\n
After the blow to her face, the witness said: \u201cI was shocked. I remember holding my mouth and walking away. I was shocked. It was completely out of the blue. I did not react. I just walked away. I didn\u2019t do anything to provoke him\u2026 I was talking to my brother. He was angry I was after being assaulted. He was saying he (the deceased) should be barred from the pub \u2013 angry that I was assaulted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later she said she saw Alex walking up the town with \u201csomething like a stick\u201d but she added: \u201cI was not conscious of what was going on\u201d.<\/p>\n
She saw him and the two teenagers coming down past Centra about 15 minutes later.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI asked Alex was he OK. He replied he was fine\u2026 He was asking me was my face OK\u2026 I would say he was calm\u2026 I asked Alex what happened. He said, \u2018I\u2019ll talk about it in the morning\u2019,\u201d\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
Ms O\u2019Kelly said.<\/p>\n
Witness Martin Hickey drove in to town to pick up one of his grandsons and he returned to town afterwards in his car, out of curiosity. Barry Daly came over to the window of his car.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was going to join the football. He was drinking a pint. He was in good form\u2026 He was celebrating. He was hanging in the window with a pint glass\u2026 I asked him was he alright for a drive home. He said, he was grand. He stepped back and I see the man no more,\u201d Mr Hickey testified.<\/p>\n
The trial continues before Ms Justice Siobh\u00e1n Lankford and the jury of seven women and five men.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The girlfriend of a young man on trial for murder in Doneraile said the deceased man punched her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[79,54,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-489890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-cork-news","tag-courts","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}