Man (20) convicted of murder of Cork postman Barry Daly

After four days of deliberating a jury finally determined that the actions of a 20-year-old in killing Cork postman Barry Daly constituted murder and not manslaughter as he had claimed.

There was no visible reaction to the verdict from Alex Deady of Glenview, Convent Road, Doneraile when the jury determined that he had murdered the 44-year-old Mr Daly at Rockview Terrace in Doneraile on October 12, 2025.

Deady had claimed when interviewed by gardaí that he only went to the deceased’s house to fight him and not to kill or seriously injure him.

However, after deliberating for 11 hours and 51 minutes, the jury decided it was murder, and their decision was unanimous.

The trial did not hear from Mr Daly’s partner on Friday, but they did hear from her during the case.

Katie O’Reilly described jumping out of bed, running out to their garden after two o’clock in the morning to find blood everywhere, and lying down beside her partner begging him to come back.

She was lying in bed waiting for Barry to come home after he had been in Doneraile for the celebrations for the victorious Junior B hurling championship team.

She heard shouting and an angry voice saying: “I am going to kill you”, and Barry saying: “Stop”.

As she lay in bed, she said to herself: “I hope to God that is not Barry”.

She heard the horrible sound of someone being whacked with force and ran to the garden, and there was blood everywhere.

“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.” 

The jury has been at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork since they were sworn in on Wednesday, June 3, and the trial opened on June 4.

But their work on this trial is not finished yet.

The six women and five men will return to the courthouse at Anglesea Street on Monday at 11am to resume their deliberations in respect of a second defendant, a 17-year-old who cannot be identified as he is a juvenile.

They were told a number of times by lawyers and by the judge that, in fact, they were dealing with separate trials and that they had to reach a decision on each case individually.

The juvenile, on whose case they still have to deliberate, also faces a charge of murdering the 44-year-old postman at Rockview Terrace in Doneraile on October 12, 2025.

Like his co-accused, Alex Deady, he pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter, at the outset of the trial.

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 Director of Public Prosecutions.