Neighbours mourn ‘nicest man in village’

WORSHIPPERS at Sunday Masses in Croom, Co Limerick, were yesterday asked to co-operate with gardaí to help track down the killer of a man admired in the village by young and old alike.

People wept openly in church as prayers were offered for Liam O’Donovan, a 59-year-old bachelor who was murdered early Saturday morning, shortly after he had returned home from an engagement party in a local pub which he had gone to with his brother, Vincent.

It is believed he received one fatal stab wound to the chest and his body was left under a lorry owned by a neighbour.

Local curate Fr Eamonn O’Brien said: “Everybody is in a state of shock at what has happened. I got to know Liam very well since I came here a few years ago. I was allowed by the gardaí to anoint the body and we had a prayer ceremony at the scene as the body was removed.”

He said Mr O’Donovan was to bring up a candle at the offertory during Saturday night’s vigil mass in memory of his late mother who died just a year ago.

“He was devoted to his mother. I gave him Holy Communion at Mass on Friday. We prayed for him at Sunday Mass and asked people to co-operate with the gardaí. Liam was a great community worker.”

Fr O’Brien said Liam O’Donovan’s murder was completely out of character with Croom. “Everybody is in total shock. I am told it is 70 years since there was a violent death in the area.”

Teams of gardaí have mounted widescale searches around Croom and garda divers are searching the river Maigue for the knife used in the murder.

Shocked neighbours yesterday spoke of the man they described as ‘the nicest person in the village” for whom nobody ever had a bad word.

Vicky Docherty, 38, lives across the road from the scene of the murder.

“Liam would call once a month to collect the e10 lottery money for the local football club. He’d tell you the recent winners and wish you better luck next time,” the mother-of-four said, who moved to Croom four years ago with her husband, David. “My husband spent a lot of time with him in Liam’s garden. It is a prestigious garden and he had fantastic roses. He was great to give David advice on growing roses. Liam was such a nice man. And to see his body lying under the lorry on Saturday when they were waiting for the pathologist and people crying on the street, it was surreal. I was only talking to him on Thursday.”

She described the murdered man as the friendliest person in Croom.

“Before moving to Croom we lived in Scotland and London and never came across a violent attack like this in my life. He will be sadly missed,” Ms Docherty added.

Gerard Ward, 30, another neighbour of the murder victim said: “The elderly people loved him as he used to play the keyboard at all their parties and they loved the music he played. He was a familiar sight going about on his bike collecting lottery money for the football club. There is a gloom over the whole place and people are shocked that such a quiet man could be murdered outside his own front door — that it could happen here.”

Nicholas Moloney, 26, who lives in St Sennan’s Terrace said: “Liam used to train us in the local soccer club when we were youngsters. He was always involved in sport. That man would not harm a fly. You’d see him on his bike going to the shop. He was just a lovely man who had a lovely house with a fantastic garden.”

Nicholas’s mother, Mrs Sarah Moloney, described Liam as a fine person. “He was a great man for soccer and trained my three boys when they were growing up. They are all devastated. This has always been a lovely, quiet place. This is something you thought you’d see on the telly. But now it has happened on our own doorstep.”