Most sensational Irish trials...

06-03-2016 10:05PM #1

...programme on the Crime channel on the murder of Rachel O'Reilly in Naul got myself and my wife talking.

It seems that sometimes a crime draws sensational coverage and gets the whole country talking. Sometimes it's hard to figure why exactly when similar cases are almost overlooked, sometimes one can see why such as the lurid detail in the Graham Dwyer case.

So what were the cases that most gripped the public?

AnonoBoy · 06-03-2016 10:21PM

Malcolm MacArthur case was a big one.

The_Valeyard · 06-03-2016 10:21PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

...programme on the Crime channel on the murder of Rachel O'Reilly in Naul got myself and my wife talking.

It seems that sometimes a crime draws sensational coverage and gets the whole country talking. Sometimes it's hard to figure why exactly when similar cases are almost overlooked, sometimes one can see why such as the lurid detail in the Graham Dwyer case.

So what were the cases that most gripped the public?

Probably the graham dwyer murder trial and trial of Joe O Reilly

Hande hoche! · 06-03-2016 10:24PM

Padraig Nally.

06-03-2016 10:27PM

The Black Widow - Catherine Nevin, found guilty of murder and soliciting others to murder her husband Tom Nevin in Jack Whites bar in Wicklow...

http://www.rte.ie/news/2000/0411/6465-nevin/

Collie D · 06-03-2016 10:34PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The Black Widow - Catherine Nevin, found guilty of murder and soliciting others to murder her husband Tom Nevin in Jack Whites bar in Wicklow...

http://www.rte.ie/news/2000/0411/6465-nevin/

Similar case a couple of years ago..not sure if it got same mass appeal but definitely caught my attention was the "Lying Eyes" one

http://m.independent.ie/woman/the-legend-of-lying-eyes-26638561.html

tayto lover · 06-03-2016 10:37PM

The Rose Moran murder case enthralled people from both sides of the border --

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/court-told-affair-led-to-murder-1.122868

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/wife-knifed-37-times-in-alleged-hit-26198154.html

Baggy Trousers · 06-03-2016 10:52PM

The Arms Trials, 1970.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/the-idiots-guide-to-the-arms-trial-26248478.html

Capt'n Midnight · 06-03-2016 10:59PM

There were some sheepdog trials last summer in Wicklow.

They were all hung :eek:

Sweetemotion · 06-03-2016 11:03PM

The scissor sisters.

http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/crime/scissor-sister-charlotte-mulhall-confessions-2033680

Roadtoad · 06-03-2016 11:04PM

The Maamrasna murders. Good book about it too.
Five murdered, then three executed.

06-03-2016 11:41PM

Lying Eyes and the Scissors Sister were pretty sensational alright.

Maamtrasna has a place in Irish history.

The Kerry Babies case was another sensational one. The tragedy is that, in all the bungling and the villification of the Hayes family, a baby who was washed up in South Kerry remains unidentified and no one will ever know what happened.

fryup · 06-03-2016 11:58PM

Oscar Wilde for sodomy, with Edward Carson as the chief prosecuting barrister

maudgonner · 06-03-2016 11:59PM

Roadtoad wrote: »

The Maamrasna murders. Good book about it too.
Five murdered, then three executed.

It's still a taboo topic in the area, over a hundred years later.

Dirty Dingus McGee · 07-03-2016 12:12AM

Dougal: Didn't you once say Jack had a trial with Liverpool.
Ted: No he was on trial in Liverpool

07-03-2016 12:16AM

Wasn't there some boy killed in Cork by his neighbour about 10 years ago? Robert something?

XR3i · 07-03-2016 12:31AM

garlic man

foxy farmer · 07-03-2016 12:41AM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Wasn't there some boy killed in Cork by his neighbour about 10 years ago? Robert something?

Robert Holohan killed by Wayne o Donoghue. In 2005.

07-03-2016 12:45AM

foxy farmer wrote: »

Robert Holohan killed by Wayne o Donoghue. In 2005.

I'm not one to criticise Judges..but that sentence did surprise me...

osarusan · 07-03-2016 12:55AM

Brendan O'Donnell trial.

foxy farmer · 07-03-2016 01:16AM

The Kerry Babies case in 1985.

Arghus · 07-03-2016 01:44AM

I think the Graham Dwyer case was the one where I felt the media was going most into complete feeding frenzy mode.

Some of these other trials people have mentioned, like The Kerry babies or Malcom McArthur, may have seemed quite shocking in more innocent times. But these were from eras where people got their news in smaller, less hyperbolic doses. The Dwyer trial was the first massive trial in Ireland of this new era, where information and "news" is everywhere, not just on newspapers, TV, Radio, or on Computer screens but also on our constant smartphone companions that we take with us everywhere and barely remove from our faces.

The trial was inescapable. Endless days of the media pouring over lurid details. The fact that so much of it involved sex and what went on behind closed doors, with people you wouldn't exactly have expected it from, made it all a pretty explosive package of sensational awfulness.

Yamanoto · 07-03-2016 02:43AM

The 1964 trial of Shan Mohangi (a South African medical student attending RCSI), who strangled and dismembered his 16-year-old girlfiend, Hazel Mullen, and attempted to incinerate her remains in the Green Tureen restaurant on Harcourt Street.

Having seen his death sentence reduced to manslaughter & serving a paltry four years of a seven year sentence, he changed his name and returned to Durban after his release & ran for political office, though he was outed for his crime & withdrew his candidacy.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/shan-mohangi-s-dublin-past-comes-back-to-haunt-him-1.729751

donvito99 · 07-03-2016 02:47AM

Joe O'Reilly.

My father's proudest moment is saying, "he dunnit" when O'Reilly appeared on the Late Late.

Arghus · 07-03-2016 03:14AM

donvito99 wrote: »

Joe O'Reilly.

My father's proudest moment is saying, "he dunnit" when O'Reilly appeared on the Late Late.

I remember having that same feeling at the time. He just seemed far too calm for a man whose wife had just been brutally murdered, but I put it down to my crazy suspicious mind.

foggy_lad · 07-03-2016 03:19AM

One that didn't recieve the same media coverage as details are not allowed to be released but which shook at the very core of people's homes and families was the Athlone rape case where a man lured two girls six and nine from a birthday party and subjected them to horrific assaults and rape.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/man-who-raped-girls-in-athlone-gets-two-life-sentences-1.1711509

Sentencing the man yesterday to life, Mr Justice Paul Carney said he found it too upsetting to recite the facts of the case.

“A feature of this case was to observe the faces of the hard-boiled press corps having difficulty listening to the facts emerging.”

He said it was too serious a case for any discount in sentence to come from the defendant’s co-operation with gardaí after his arrest or from his early plea of guilty.

Arghus · 07-03-2016 04:02AM

foggy_lad wrote: »

One that didn't recieve the same media coverage as details are not allowed to be released but which shook at the very core of people's homes and families was the Athlone rape case where a man lured two girls six and nine from a birthday party and subjected them to horrific assaults and rape.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/man-who-raped-girls-in-athlone-gets-two-life-sentences-1.1711509

That's a very disturbing case, I remember it being mentioned in the media. Have to say that I'm glad some of the details weren't made public.

I still think the Dwyer case takes the biscuit. It was properly sensational: the level of interest was immense and widespread and the media was churning away non-stop to cover it.

Pat Mustard · 07-03-2016 04:23AM

Not criminal trials but civil trials neverthless.

The Ian Bailey defamation actions, where he lost against several newspapers and the recent civil action against the State, which he also lost.

The evidence of Marie Farrell contained stuff like this:

She said they (Gardai) told her Mr Bailey would howl at the moon and had sat in a rocking chair on Barleycove beach with ten lesbians dancing around him. She believed what the gardai told her, she said.

foggy_lad · 07-03-2016 04:59AM

The whole Liam lawlor trials and his subsequent prison sentences for not naming who he received corrupt payments from were quite sensational as one of the first times a TD was locked up. He was even released for a few hours from mountjoy on one of his stays to fight his corner in the Mail.

Then his unfortunate death in Moscow created even more sensation.

seamus · 07-03-2016 10:15AM

Yamanoto wrote: »

The 1964 trial of Shan Mohangi (a South African medical student attending RCSI), who strangled and dismembered his 16-year-old girlfiend, Hazel Mullen, and attempted to incinerate her remains in the Green Tureen restaurant on Harcourt Street.

Having seen his death sentence reduced to manslaughter & serving a paltry four years of a seven year sentence, he changed his name and returned to Durban after his release & ran for political office, though he was outed for his crime & withdrew his candidacy.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/shan-mohangi-s-dublin-past-comes-back-to-haunt-him-1.729751

This I was going to post, my Dad would still mention it from time to time.

One feature about the case was the fact that he was black (though looking at old pictures, he's more Middle Eastern than African). Apparently there was some mild hysteria from the likes of old women about black men climbing into bedrooms and murdering you in your sleep, talking about the whole country going to pot.
Because he was only sentenced to seven years and would be extraordinarily distinctive, the government thought it wouldn't be possible to have him walking the streets again - believing there would either be a public panic wherever he went, or he would end up dead down an alleyway.

So they sent him home.

07-03-2016 10:19AM

The killing of Brian Murphy at Annabel's nightclub was pretty big. All the defendants were privileged types and dubbed the Blackrock Bootboys.

Most sensational Irish trials...

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