Fatal attack on Doneraile postman like 'something from Kill Bill, it is toxic masculinity, MMA', court heard
Barry Daly was found dead in Doneraile on October 12, 2025.
The fatal attack on Doneraile postman Barry Daly last October had elements of toxic masculinity, mixed martial arts and gratuitous violence, the prosecution said in its closing speech in the murder trial on Monday.
Defence senior counsel Alice Fawsitt said: “There is no evidence that [the 17-year-old accused] struck any blow to Barry Daly. The prosecution say, it must have been, there had to have been. But that is not enough. There has to be proof that he did, beyond reasonable doubt.”
The 17-year-old, who cannot be identified as he is a juvenile, pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter of 44-year-old Barry Daly, at Rockview Terrace in Doneraile on October 12, 2025.
Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford will continue to address the jury of six men and six women at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork on Tuesday on the legal principles applicable to the case.
The closing evidence on Monday saw a number of uncontested facts being confirmed to the jury by Detective Garda Noelle McSweeney: That Alex Deady, 20, has been convicted of murdering Barry Daly; that a 16-year-old has been convicted of manslaughter; and that the 17-year-old who is on trial has no previous convictions of any kind and has never come to the attention of the gardaí, other than in this investigation.
In his closing speech, prosecution senior counsel Lorcan Staines said: “The DPP takes no pleasure prosecuting a child for murder. In our view, we have to do so because what we have here is a case of murder.”
He referred to the apparent frustration of detective gardaí across lengthy interviews with the teenager “telling bald lies”.
He said it did not really matter what happened on Main Street, Doneraile, earlier, in terms of altercations: “It does not really matter who punched who or whether Barry Daly hit Rachel O’Kelly [girlfriend of Alex Deady], or whether he intended to or not — but a bit of a health warning on her [Rachel O’Kelly’s] evidence, particularly around Barry Daly looking her in the eye and punching her straight to the face.”
Mr Staines said by his plea of guilty to manslaughter the teenager was accepting responsibility for Mr Daly’s death, but not for his murder and he said this was where it came down to intent: “He is suggesting he went there to fight, perhaps to cause injury but not to cause serious injury.
“We say all the evidence is that Alex Deady’s golf club was used on Barry Daly, as was [the 17-year-old’s]… There was unabashed lying. The really big lie is that there was only one strike and it was by Alex Deady. It could not be the case that it came from one strike…
"The idea that he fell over on Main Street and there was a cut all the way to his skull. No one describes Barry Daly being seriously injured [on Main Street] or bleeding. We say if you believe that, you will believe anything.”
Mr Staines said there was evidence from a teenage friend who told gardaí in a statement (although he later said in the trial he was not sure) that the next morning when he met the 17-year-old accused, he told him Alex hit Barry Daly and he (the 17-year-old) kicked him on the ground and that the kick was to the stomach.
“Why would he say it [in his statement to gardaí] if it was not true — that is for you to assess… If [the 17-year-old] was kicking while Alex Deady was striking, that is murder,” Mr Staines said.
Describing the attack on the late Barry Daly in the front garden of his home, Mr Staines said: “It is like something you would see in , it is toxic masculinity, MMA [mixed martial arts], it is all this. It is gratuitous violence.”
Mr Staines said person after person tried to stop the 17-year-old going up to Mr Daly's home and doing what he was going to do, but that he went ahead anyway.
Defence senior counsel Alice Fawsitt said, said of the teenager: “He accepts he is responsible to the extent of manslaughter. He has put his hands up to this. Are you going to change his status to be a murderer of Barry Daly?”
Ms Fawsitt said there was evidence saying, for instance, that “they were shouting” but the defence lawyer said there was very little evidence of the teenager on his own, when he was not in the company of Alex Deady.
She said the exception to that was that after being called "knackers", the 17-year-old was hurt by this and responded by head-butting the man who said it.
Ms Fawsitt emphasised the fact that even though the teenager had golf clubs in this earlier incident on the way to Barry Daly’s house, he did not use the golf clubs on the man who called them "knackers", but instead “uses the old-fashioned head” to carry out the assault.
Ms Fawsitt said the 17-year-old did not tell gardaí about his 16-year-old friend, who has been convicted of the manslaughter of Barry Daly. She said gardaí could have told the 17-year-old from the beginning that they knew the 16-year-old was there and they knew his identity.
Ms Fawsitt said of her client: “He was involved in a joint enterprise to go up for a fight and possibly to cause harm, not to cause serious harm.”
Regarding CCTV evidence of the accused slapping a golf club against the ground, she said every three-year-old boy who has ever been given a stick hits it against the ground.
On the prosecution contention there had to have been more than one blow to the late Barry Daly, Ms Fawsitt reminded the jury they had only heard evidence from two people about what happened in the garden — Katie O’Reilly, Mr Daly’s partner, who gave evidence of what she heard in the garden as she lay in bed, and the accused in his interviews with gardaí.
Ms Fawsitt said the teenager said there was one blow to Barry Daly from Alex Deady, and the evidence from Katie O’Reilly was that she heard one whack.
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