Witness tells court two men killed Cork homeless man because he was gay

Kathleen O'Brien (pictured) told the court how she put her body over Cork chef Timmy Hourihane to try to protect him. Photo; Mary Browne

A woman threw herself over Cork chef Timmy Hourihane to try to protect him as he was allegedly beaten to death in a “crazy wild” attack, the Central Criminal Court has heard.

Kathleen O’Brien was living in a tented village off Mardyke Walk in Cork city at the time of Mr Hourihane’s violent killing on October 13, 2019.

James Brady, 28, of Shannon Lawn, Mayfield, Cork, is on trial for Mr Hourihane’s murder and has pleaded not guilty. Another man has also been charged with his murder and is to be tried at a later date.

She said that on the night of the killing, a man who cannot be named for legal reasons and James Brady "were shouting and yelling and screaming” at the tented village. “They were firing each other up, getting angrier and angrier,” Ms O’Brien said.

“They came across Timmy. They started beating him. James Brady and [the unnamed man] hit Timmy. Timmy fell down. I think James Brady hit him first. I think he hit him in the face with his fist. Timmy fell over.

The witness told the court: “James Brady (pictured) opened his [Mr Hourihane’s] legs and said to [unnamed man] to ‘go on kick him, he’s only a f*****'”. Photo: Cork Courts

“He didn’t know what was going on. James Brady and [unnamed man] were shouting, egging each other on. I seen them stamp on Timmy’s head. Both of them.

“They were stamping on his head. Then one started stamping on his legs. They were taking turns. I threw my body over Timmy’s head to try to protect him, then down to his legs.” 

Ms O’Brien said that she repeatedly moved from covering Mr Hourihane’s head to his legs, trying to deflect the blows as the two men allegedly moved unremittingly from one unprotected area to the next during the allegedly sustained attack.

“James Brady opened his [Mr Hourihane’s] legs and said to [unnamed man] to ‘go on kick him, he’s only a f*****,’” she said. James Brady then kicked him first followed by the unnamed man, she said.

“I could hear Timmy gurgling,” Ms O’Brien said. “I screamed and pleaded, everything, for them to stop.

I put my body over his head, they were pulling me off of him. I was getting hit…they were going crazy wild, with hits and kicks.

“I ended up with a black eye a few bruises, a few hits to the head.” 

Mr Hourihane was “covered with his own blood” by the end of the attack, she said. “Maybe they exhausted themselves by beating so much. It finally stopped when the man was beyond recognition.

“I ran, I got scared, back to the tent. James Brady just disappeared.” 

Ms O’Brien gave a statement to gardaí following the alleged attack, initially saying that she knew nothing about it because she “was scared for my life after seeing what they did.” But she later changed her statement, giving gardaí the same account that she gave to the Central Criminal Court in Waterford on Monday.

She said that she changed her statement months after the killing because she remembered vividly what happened to Mr Hourihane, and that it was “a nightmare.” “Every night all I could see was Timmy’s face,” she said.

She said that she suffered a brain hemorrhage and fractured skull a number of months after his death and her memory has otherwise been patchy since.

Senior Counsel Vincent Heneghan alleged that Ms O’Brien’s version of events was inaccurate. He said that his client, Mr Brady, had said that another man had started the alleged attack on Mr Hourihane that night and that both Mr Brady and Ms O’Brien tried to stop this unnamed man from attacking the victim.

But Ms O’Brien said that two men killed Mr Hourihane.

“I respect you and you’re doing a good job, but I swear with my hand on my heart, on the holy bible, that James Brady and [unnamed man] killed that man in cold blood for no other fact than that the man was gay.

“The two of them really killed this man, they were kicking him in the head and between the legs calling him a f*****.” She said that she did not see the fire which was close to where Mr Hourihane was fatally assaulted.

Soup kitchen witnesses

Two witnesses who were volunteering on a soup run in Cork city said that Mr Brady appeared to be in pain in the hours before the killing. They said that he was covered in blood following an assault and was so unsteady on his feet that Liam O’Connor and Mary O’Neill gave him a lift back to Mardyke Walk from the Patrick St soup kitchen, they said.

“He was in very poor condition. We had to help him out of the car,” Ms O’Neill said. “I’d met James before, he was quiet, always polite. That evening when he came up he looked fairly sore, fairly stiff.

“There was blood on his arms and clothes. He was unable to change his own clothes. He had to be helped to be dressed that night.” But Justice Deirdre Murphy noted that CCTV showed him walking back into the camp unaided shortly after 11pm.

Life at homeless camp

A climate of fear, with volatile outbursts, threats and violent attacks, had settled over the makeshift tented village off Mardyke Walk before the killing, the court heard.

There were beatings, fractious divisions between groups there, and allegations that people put crumpled biscuits into other’s tents to attract rats.

Two witnesses were so afraid that they tried to leave the campsite with Mr Hourihane in the hours before his death. But because they couldn’t carry everything, they decided to stay until they had some money to make the move more possible. Mr Hourihane had only returned to the camp a few short days before his death.

Kellie Lynch and her partner Ivana Bozic were friends of Mr Hourihane’s. They had lent him a tent the night before the killing because he had nowhere to sleep. That night, there had been an altercation in the camp and the women had called gardaí.

The next day, they were threatened, with one person allegedly saying ‘burn baby burn’ to the young women.

Ms Lynch said that Mr Hourihane was “a jolly person” who “talked away to everybody”.

The three of them had been together that day, in their tents and then in Cork city but they got separated around Tuckey Street when the victim stopped to talk to someone.

When they arrived back to Mardyke Walk shortly after midnight, the tent next to theirs was “totally blazed up” and their own tent was also catching fire.

“It was scary. We had threats that day saying ‘burn baby burn’. We had been expecting it but not really,” Ms Lynch said.

She said that they left the area in shock, aware that people were looking after a man on the ground who Ms Bozic thought was Mr Hourihane.

Timothy Hourihane suffered extensive lung hemorrhaging due to blunt force, and head and facial trauma and died at Cork University Hospital after the alleged assault. Photo: Provision

Another witness, Martin Harrington, who was also homeless at the time and living in the tented village, said that life at the camp was frightening.

He had been attacked himself at the camp a short time before Mr Hourihane’s death, and believed he would have been killed had another man not intervened.

On the night of the killing, he said that there was “a big racket outside.” “I thought it was going to turn into a gang fight or something,” Mr Harrington said.

“I was getting worried because I didn’t want to be stuck in the middle of a street fight between gangs, I thought that’s what it was going to be.” When he went out to see what was going on, he said that Mr Brady said: "F**k off and mind your own business. It has nothing to do with you."

“That’s what I done. I was really getting really worried. The worst thing about there is ..you are very trapped inside there.

“I legged it and I called the guards. ‘You have to come down here fast, if you don’t hurry up some will get hurt or even killed.’"

The trial in front of Justice Deirdre Murphy and a jury of seven women and five men continues.

Mr Hourihane, a father of one, was a trained chef and worked for some time for the Hilton Hotel group in the UK but was homeless at the time of his death. He was originally from the Sheep's Head Peninsula outside Bantry in West Cork.

He suffered extensive lung hemorrhaging due to blunt force, and head and facial trauma and died at Cork University Hospital after the alleged assault.