'It’s not good for the parish': Victim of Hayes brothers offered 'bag of cash' in exchange for silence

Ciaran Ryan, in hospital, after he was attacked with a hurley and a wrench by Limerick brothers Cian and Daragh Hayes. 

The man who was violently beaten by Daragh and Cian Hayes with a hurley and a spider wrench has said he was offered “a bag of cash” to withdraw his statement ahead of the trial.

Ciaran Ryan suffered several injuries, including a broken leg, fractured ribs, a punctured lung, and broken fingers after being assaulted in September 2021 by the Hayes brothers in their home in Kildimo.

After the attack, Mr Ryan said the two brothers carried him out of the house because he couldn’t walk, and sent him “on my way to die”.

“They had to start the car for me,” Mr Ryan told the Sunday World. 

“They had to put it into gear, they had to let up the clutch and they just sent me on my way to die — literally, because they knew I was going to faint.” 

The doctors told Mr Ryan’s mother that he had a “50/50 chance of survival”.

During the days following the attack, Mr Ryan said the Hayes brothers started spreading rumours about the attack.

They put rumours out that it was a Traveller gang that had assaulted me, but it was all lies. 

"They were trying to move the limelight away from them.” Once he made a statement to gardaí, Mr Ryan said he and his family became pariahs in their own parish.

He said people fear the “GAA and the Hayes”.

“People were just in silence because they were afraid,” he told the Sunday newspaper.

“The fear people have of the GAA and the Hayes —  they wanted nothing to do with us.” At some point, Mr Ryan even got offered “a bag of cash” in exchange for his silence: 

I had people, who are not nice people, ring me and say: ‘Will you take a bag of cash and let this all go away? Will you take a bag of cash?’ 

He said his father, who is a Eucharistic minister, would not go to Mass in Kildimo anymore, because of how others looked at him.

Mr Ryan received a call from a local farmer, asking him to resolve “this out of court”.

“’It’s not good for the parish. That’s what he said. It’s not good for the parish.

“It was just madness. They were blaming me for putting a downness [sic] on the parish and the GAA.

“Like it was my fault. I was the victim. It was not my fault,” said Mr Ryan.

Mr Ryan said someone working for him was pinned up against a wall in a local pub, and told to pick a side.

“You either pick the Hayes or you pick Ciaran Ryan. 

They were putting an element of fear into the parish that was uncanny. It was just crazy.

The two brothers of Limerick hurler Kyle Hayes were jailed on Thursday for beating their friend, Ciaran Ryan, with a hurley and a spider wrench.

Daragh Hayes, 37, and Cian Hayes, 34, of Ballyashea, Kildimo, Co Limerick, lured Mr Ryan, into Daragh Hayes’s house where they viciously attacked him after erroneously believing Mr Ryan had gotten romantically involved with Daragh Hayes’ ex-partner.

Daragh Hayes was jailed for three years with the final six months suspended, while Cian Hayes was sentenced to two-and-a-half years, with the final six months suspended.