Woman threw herself over Cork chef Timmy Hourihane to try to protect him as he was allegedly beaten to death, court hears 

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 reason 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.

“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 faggot,’” 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 today.

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.