Jury deadlocked on third teen accused in Doneraile murder of Barry Daly
A jury deliberated for over 18 hours across six days but failed to reach a verdict on a 17-year-old accused of murdering Barry Daly in Doneraile last October.
Jury discharged after 18 hours without verdict in Doneraile murder trial
A jury at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork has been discharged after failing to reach a verdict against a 17-year-old accused of murdering 44-year-old Barry Daly at Rockview Terrace in Doneraile on 12 October 2025, irishexaminer.com reports.
The panel of five men and six women deliberated for 18 hours and 18 minutes over six days before Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford brought them back to Courtroom 6 on Wednesday afternoon and asked whether further time would assist them. The jury foreperson indicated it would not.
Justice Lankford thanked the jury for their "assiduous approach" to the case and formally 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, 10 July.
The charge and the plea
The 17-year-old pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter — the precise distinction the jury was unable to resolve. Daly was found dead in the front garden of his home in Doneraile on the morning of 12 October 2025.
Two co-accused faced the same charge. Alex Deady, 20, of Glenview, Convent Road, Doneraile, County Cork, also pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter. On Friday, 3 July, the jury found him guilty of murder. A 16-year-old co-accused entered a guilty plea to manslaughter during the trial, which was accepted by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Prosecution: 'The idea of one strike is utterly fanciful'
Lorcan Staines, prosecution senior counsel, argued that the 17-year-old could not credibly claim he had been unaware of what co-accused Deady intended to do.
"Ultimately, we say that on the evidence it cannot have been the case that he did not know what Alex wanted to do," Staines told the jury.
He rejected the defence contention that only a single golf club blow was delivered, pointing to injuries to Daly's mouth, what he described as "his absolutely battered jaw", injuries to the back of his head, abrasions across his body, and one significant wound consistent with a golf club strike.
"The idea that there was one strike with a golf club is just utterly fanciful," Staines said. He also questioned how a broken golf club head came to be found within feet of the deceased: "It did not get there by an act of God, it wasn't teleported there."
Defence: story never changed
Alice Fawsitt, senior counsel for the 17-year-old, challenged the prosecution's framing of the evidence. She told the jury it was significant that when witness Seamus Hunter encountered the three accused on the street that night and called them "f***ing knackers", the teenager — who was carrying a golf club in each hand at the time — did not use the clubs against Hunter but instead head-butted him and later pleaded guilty to that assault.
Fawsitt argued this detail was relevant to the question of whether her client had intended to use golf clubs as weapons.
She also pushed back against suggestions that the teenager had changed his account during Garda interviews. According to Fawsitt, his version was consistent throughout: he entered the garden, Daly swung at him first, he ducked, Deady struck the deceased once, and the 17-year-old himself never hit Daly at all.
To assist in their final day of deliberations, the jury had requested copies of the closing speeches from both the prosecution and the defence. Justice Lankford told them the speeches constituted advocacy rather than evidence, but transcripts of both were provided.
The case returns before the court on 10 July for the next step in proceedings against the 17-year-old.
Source: Google News IE — Crime (en)