Murder drama that put O’Reilly case in the shade 25 years earlier

LAST Sunday, as the media had wall-to-wall coverage of Joe O’Reilly’s conviction for the murder of his wife, the 25th anniversary of one of the most notorious murders in Irish history went unnoticed.

It was exactly a quarter of century since Malcolm MacArthur attacked and mortally wounded nurse Bridie Gargan while she was sunbathing in Phoenix Park on July 22, 1982.

In a sense, the attention attracted by O’Reilly case was mild compared with the publicity devoted to the MacArthur case. The Gargan murder, in broad daylight, was a sensation because it was so brazen.

The attack was actually witnessed by the gardener at the US ambassador’s residence.

As MacArthur made off in the young nurse’s car, he got stuck in traffic, but an ambulance crew saw the mortally wounded women in the car with a head wound.

Bridie Gargan’s car had a parking sticker for St James’s Hospital and the ambulance crew assumed MacArthur was a doctor taking an injured patient to the hospital, so it made way through the traffic for the car with its siren blaring.

MacArthur drove into the hospital grounds, but then took off again and abandoned the car with the dying nurse inside. He was seen by a number of people in an excited state. One man saw him shave off his beard in the toilet of a Finglas pub. A few days later somebody fitting his description answered a small ad regarding the sale of a shotgun.

Donal Dunne of Edenderry had offered his gun for sale, and MacArthur requested to see it. Dunne was later found dead, with a shotgun wound to his head. This sparked off probably the most intensive manhunt ever. On August 4, a retired diplomat living in Killiney reported that a man fitting the wanted man’s description had tried to rob him in his home. MacArthur produced a sawn-off shotgun and demanded £1,000.

The owner did not have that kind of money in cash, but he offered to give him a cheque.

While writing the cheque he managed to escape out the front floor. Next day, MacArthur phoned the gardaí giving his real name and saying the incident with the gun was just a prank.

As a criminal, his incompetence seemed as boundless as it was lethal. He had moved to Tenerife with his partner and child in May, but had squandered an inheritance of £70,000 and came back to rob a bank. Yet he couldn’t even get to the first step. After the Killiney incident he called on his partner’s old friend, Patrick Connolly, and was invited to stay. A team of detectives, headed by Det Insp Noel Conroy (now Garda Commissioner), carried out intensive enquiries in the south Dublin area. They learned that a presumed “nephew” staying with the attorney general in his Pilot View apartment in Dalkey fitted MacArthur’s description. The murder squad were confident he was their man, and they moved in to arrest him on Friday, August 13. The gardaí found the sawn-off shotgun hidden in the storage area underneath the attic. The gun had the serial number of the late Donal Dunne’s gun.

According to the arresting garda, Chief Supt John Courtney, the Attorney General initially refused to make a statement. He said he was going on holidays. He had already planned to go to the US next day.

Initially, the media only reported that MacArthur was arrested in the apartment complex in which the Attorney General was living, not in his actual apartment. But when the story broke over the weekend, Connolly had to return from the US and tender his resignation as Attorney General.

At the ensuing press conference, Taoiseach Charles Haughey sought to excuse his own dithering by variously describing the case as grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented. This prompted columnist Conor Cruise O’Brien to coin the acronym GUBU.

Haughey was asked at one point why nobody had complimented the gardaí on their handling of the case. It was a loaded question. Some people were suggesting, unfairly, that the gardaí had sought to embarrass the government by arresting MacArthur in the Attorney General’s apartment rather than outside it. Haughey tried to avoid any suspicion that he was blaming the gardaí.

“It was a very good piece of police work,” he said. He praised the gardaí for their painstaking efforts in “putting the whole thing together and eventually finding the right man”.

By alluding to MacArthur as the “right man,” the Taoiseach clearly prejudged his guilt. Reporters were asked to withhold the reference, as it had been inadvertent, but some segments of the British media took a delight in highlighting the gaffe.

Haughey already knew that MacArthur had signed a confession, admitting his role in the Gargan murder, at least. He pleaded guilty to that murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison. The court case took only 10 minutes. Many questions were raised about the murder of Donal Dunne, but MacArthur was never charged with it. There were suggestions that a deal had been made for him to plead guilty to just the one murder and the other case would be dropped.

THERE were even absurd suggestions that Haughey had tried to undermine the case with his prejudicial comments. Some people suspected MacArthur would be freed in a few years as part of the deal, but 25 years later, he is still in jail. Anyone who thinks Joe O’Reilly will be released in a few years would do well to ponder MacArthur’s fate.

While last Sunday’s papers were saturated with the O’Reilly case, there was an unforgettable incident at the British Open that seemed to bring life back into perspective. All too often it is the evil and the sordid that gain most attention, but in the midst of the sensational O’Reilly coverage, we witnessed a majestic sequence that had drama, love and triumph.

On the final hole of his fourth round at Carnoustie, Pádraig Harrington messed up by going into the water twice. He looked utterly devastated on the green after finishing. It seemed he was making sporting history for all the wrong reasons.

He was clearly shattered and wondered afterwards whether he would ever have been able to face playing golf again if he had been beaten. He would have been tagged with the reputation of being the all-time choker. It would have been grossly unfair, but then life is not always fair.

As Pádraig moved away from the hole in an obvious daze, his three-year-old son, Paddy, came running out to him.

Paddy was too young to know what was happening; he was just running to his daddy. The gloom immediately lifted. Pádraig broke into a broad smile and bent down to lift his son. This suddenly became even more important than lifting the old claret jug trophy.

Many prominent people become so consumed with their own ambitions that they frequently forget about their families. Young Paddy undoubtedly helped to break an enormous amount of tension. In the process he probably helped Pádraig to lift the old jug, too.