Jury in Doneraile murder case fails to reach a verdict and is discharged by judge

The jury in the Doneraile murder trial at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork failed to reach any verdict in the case against the 17-year-old who admitted manslaughter but denied murdering 44-year-old Barry Daly in the front garden of his home last October.

The five men and six women of the jury deliberated for a total of 18 hours and 18 minutes across a total of six days.

As Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford brought them back to Courtroom 6 to send them home for the rest of the day this afternoon, she asked if they felt that any further time would be of benefit in considering a verdict. 

The jury foreperson indicated that further time would not help. At that point, the judge thanked the jury for their assiduous approach to the case and discharged them. They were also excused from further jury service for a period of seven years.

The case against the teenager was adjourned for mention on Friday July 10.

On the charge of murdering Mr Daly at Rockview Terrace in Doneraile on October 12 2025, the 17-year-old pleaded not guilty to murder, but guilty to manslaughter. This is the issue the jury was unable to decide.

Co-accused, 20-year-old Alex Deady of Glenview, Convent Road, Doneraile, County Cork, also pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter. On Friday, July 3, the jury found him guilty of murder.

The 16-year-old co-accused entered a plea of guilty for the first time during the trial, when he said he was not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter, and this plea to manslaughter was acceptable to the DPP.

To assist the last of their deliberations today in the case against the 17-year-old, the jury asked for a copy of the closing speeches from the prosecution and the defence. 

They were told by the judge that these speeches were advocacy rather than evidence but a transcript of both speeches was made available to them.

Lorcan Staines, prosecution senior counsel, said the 17-year-old might say that he did not intend to cause serious harm. “Ultimately, we say that on the evidence it cannot have been the case that he did not know what Alex wanted to do.

“The idea that there was only one strike to Barry Daly and that it only came from Alex is something we reject. We do not accept that only one golfclub was used. The idea that there was one strike is fanciful. I ask you how did a broken head of a golfclub get within feet of Barry Daly, it did not get there by an act of God, it wasn’t teleported there,” 

Mr Staines said.

The prosecution senior counsel itemised injuries to the deceased’s mouth, “his absolutely battered jaw”, back of head and abrasions “all over his body”, and “one very significant injury to his body consistent with striking with a golfclub”. 

He commented: “The idea of one strike with a golfclub is just utterly fanciful.” 

Alice Fawsitt, senior counsel for the 17-year-old, said the prosecution’s role is to present the facts to the jury and not to look for a guilty verdict but she said they had looked for such a verdict in this case.

She said it was important for the jury to consider what happened when witness Seamus Hunter tried to get the three accused to cop on and go home that night. 

He called them f***ing knackers, and the 17-year-old head-butted him, and later pleaded guilty to that assault. In the context of someone allegedly intending to use golfclubs, Ms Fawsitt said it was important to consider that even though he had a golfclub in each hand at the time he encountered Mr Hunter on the street he never used the clubs but head-butted him instead.

Ms Fawsitt said that in the interviews, gardaí kept saying he was changing his story but she said that, in fact, it never changed and that from the beginning he said, he went into the garden, Barry Daly swung at him, he ducked to avoid being struck, that Alex hit the deceased once, and that he (the 17-year-old defendant) never hit the late Mr Daly at all.