Doneraile murder trial: Judge focuses on testimonies of Cork postman's partner and accused's girlfriend
Barry Daly was found dead in Doneraile on October 12, 2025.
Barry Daly’s partner jumped out of bed and ran out to their garden after 2am to find blood everywhere and she lay beside him begging him to come back, it was recalled in the trial at the Central Criminal Court in Cork.
This evidence was recalled by Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford as she summarised for the jury the testimonies of a number of witnesses when the Doneraile murder trial resumed on Monday.
The judge said she was going to summarise the evidence of many witnesses only very briefly but for some of them, she would describe the testimony in greater detail. One such witness was the late Barry Daly’s partner, Katie O’Reilly.
Ms Justice Lankford said: “She said that Barry would have a few drinks at home, but that socialising was a bit of a rarity, that he went out about once a month. Everything was fine on that day. He was with his brother-in-law. He was on a week’s holidays. He was in mighty form — he had won €600 on the Lotto…
"They went out around 7pm. He didn’t have a key. He was going to knock on the bedroom window. She was expecting Barry. She was lying in bed.
“She heard a lot of shouting. It was more than one person, male voices. She heard, ‘I am going to kill you’ in an angry voice, and Barry saying, ‘Stop’.
“As she lay in bed she said to herself: ‘I hope to God that is not Barry.’ She said: ‘I could hear the bangs like someone getting whacked. They were horrible full force bangs of someone.’
“She ran out to Barry. There was blood everywhere. She said: ‘I lay down by him. I knew he was dead. I checked for a pulse. I lay down beside him. I kept begging him to come back. I was lying beside Barry for maybe two minutes.”
Ms Justice Lankford recounted the cross-examination by Alice Fawsitt, senior counsel on behalf of the 17-year-old defendant, in which it was pointed out in Ms O’Reilly’s statement to gardaí she never described hearing Barry say, ‘Stop’, and she only described hearing one bang and not bangs, plural. Ms Fawsitt said her instructions in the case were that no one shouted: "I’m going to kill him."
Another witness dealt with in some detail by the trial judge was Rachel O’Kelly, girlfriend of one of the accused, Alex Deady. The judge recalled Ms O’Kelly’s evidence about being struck in Doneraile earlier that night by Barry Daly: “His pupils were most certainly dilated. He was looking at me with his mouth open, definitely angry. There was about 10 seconds of eye contact. He hit me into the side of the face with his fist… It was most definitely purposeful.”
She said her brother Fionn was headbutted by another person with the deceased seconds after she was punched.
Another witness said that on the night in Doneraile, Barry Daly said to him, in relation to striking Rachel O’Kelly: “I did not mean it.”
Evidence from John Glassett, who overheard shouts when he was in the area after the time of the disputed incident in the front garden of the late Barry Daly’s home, was also recalled by Ms Justice Lankford for the jury. Mr Glassett testified he heard three shouts: “I told him I will f***ing kill him”; “he is sleeping in his front garden”; and “two blows.” He did not know who was shouting these words.
20-year-old Alex Deady, of Glenview, Convent Road, Doneraile, Co Cork, and a 17-year-old each face a charge of murdering Barry Daly at Rockview Terrace in Doneraile on October 12, 2025.
Alex Deady and the 17-year-old pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter, at the outset of the trial.
The jury will have to decide in each case if the defendant is guilty of murder or manslaughter. Issues they will have to consider will be the intention of each defendant, and whether the intention was to have a fight and harm Barry Daly, in which case the verdict would be manslaughter, or if they intended to kill or cause serious harm, in which case the verdict would be murder.
Other issues the jury were told they were required to consider include whether there was provocation and whether they were acting together in what is legally termed common design or joint enterprise.
The jury no longer has to consider the case against a third accused. On June 24, the third defendant, who is 16, entered a plea of guilty for the first time, in the following terms: “Not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter,” and this plea to manslaughter was acceptable to the DPP.
One juror in the case was unable to continue with the case on Monday, and she was thanked by the judge for her commitment to the case to date and she was discharged from taking a further part in the trial, which continues.
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