Jury fail to reach verdict on teenager charged with postman's murder in Cork
Olivia Kelleher
A jury in the trial of a 17-year-old charged with the murder of a Cork postman has failed to reach a verdict after deliberating for 18 hours and 18 minutes.
The 17-year-old, who can’t be named for legal reasons, went on trial on June 4th last, charged with the murder of 44-year-old Barry Daly at Rockview Terrace in Doneraile, Co. Cork, on October 12th, 2015. Both he and his co-accused Alex Deady (21) pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty of the manslaughter of the father of five.
A third accused had also gone on trial on the same date, charged with the murder of Daly. However, on June 24th, the 16-year-old defendant entered a plea of unlawful killing. His plea was found to be acceptable to the DPP.
Last Friday, the jury at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork found Deady of Glenview, Convent Road, Doneraile, guilty of the murder of Daly.
Their decision was unanimous and came after close to 12 hours of deliberations.
On Wednesday afternoon, the jury of six men and five women indicated through their foreperson that there was no prospect of them reaching a verdict on which they could agree as regards the 17-year-old accused. The jury had been given the option of a majority verdict. A twelfth juror was excused from service towards the end of the trial.
The case of the 17-year-old was listed for mention for state directions on Friday at a sitting of the Central Criminal Court in Cork.
Judge Siobhan Lankford thanked the "hard-working" jury for their "assiduous" approach to the case and discharged them. She excused them from jury service for a period of seven years.
Meanwhile, the evidence at the trial was that Daly had suffered “catastrophic” head and facial injuries after being struck by golf clubs.
Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster said that Daly’s jaw was broken into fragments and dislocated from where it attaches to the skull on the left side.
She stated that this “would have caused an awful lot of bleeding that would have been inhaled into the lungs.” As a result, he was unable to breathe. His lungs were four times the normal weight, as so much blood had been inhaled into the lungs.
No offensive or defensive wounds were found. An organ donor card was amongst the items found in the clothing of the deceased.
Witnesses at the trial stated that a large number of locals had gathered in Eily’s Bar in Doneraile on the evening of October 11th, 2025 to celebrate a Junior B hurling championship win by the local team.
The jury heard that Daly struck Deady's girlfriend in the mouth outside the bar just hours before his death. Some witnesses felt that the punch was deliberate, with others expressing the belief that it was accidental.
A doorbell security camera from a house in Doneraile recorded Deady as saying that he could not wait to see the imprint of a five-iron golf club on the face of Daly.
In his Garda interviews, Deady had told gardaí that he was “fuming” as his girlfriend had “got a belt” from Daly. He insisted that he hadn’t meant to kill Daly.
Katie O’Reilly, the partner of the deceased, said in her evidence that she woke in her bed in the early hours of October 12th, 2025, to the sound of “a commotion” outside her home. She heard the voice of her partner shouting ‘stop.” She then heard another voice yelling: “I’m going to kill you.”
She then heard someone “get a belt of something". She was lying in bed with one of her children and said to herself: “I hope to God that is not Barry.”
Her mother, Siobhan Ryall, wept whilst giving evidence as she recalled seeing an injured Daly lying “lengthways to the gate".
“There was a lot of blood. The first thing I noticed was the hole in his cheek. I heard some kind of choking. I put him in the recovery position.”
Ryall did chest compressions until the ambulance arrived. She said the bones of Daly “cracked” and she thought she was “doing it wrong".
She told jurors that she was “haunted” by the fact that she had been unable to save the partner of her daughter.
