‘Lonely’ hurling coach took his own life

One of the country’s top hurling coaches who took his own life was “lonely” following the breakdown of his marriage a year earlier, an inquest heard yesterday.

Cork City Coroner’s Court was told that Fitzgibbon Cup hurling legend, Paul O’Connor, aged 49, who lived at Highfield Lawn in Bishopstown, wrote a note outlining his funeral arrangements before he was found dead in his house on the morning of Oct 20 last.

The alarm had been raised by his teaching colleagues at Ursuline Convent in Blackrock after he failed to show up for work for the second day in a row.