A sixth man has been convicted of the murder of a man who died after he was attacked while attending a funeral in a graveyard in Co Kerry two years ago.
Danny Dooley (42) of An Carrigin, Connolly Park, Tralee was one of six accused who denied the murder of his cousin, Tom Dooley (43) at Rath Cemetery, Rathass, Tralee on October 5th 2022. On Thursday a jury convicted him by a 11-to-1 majority after almost 21 hours of deliberations.
Danny Dooley is a cousin of the deceased. Last Thursday, the jury convicted another three men of the murder: Daniel’s brother, Thomas Dooley Snr (43) and his nephew, Thomas Dooley Jnr (21), both also of Carrigrohane Road, Cork, as well as a teenager who can’t be named.
And on Friday the jury returned a guilty verdict in the case of a fourth accused, the dead man’s brother, Patrick Dooley (36) from Arbutus Grove in Killarney. On Tuesday, they convicted another accused, Daniel’s brother Michael Dooley (29) from Carrigrohane Road, Cork.
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There were emotional scenes when the jury of ten men and two women returned with their final verdict, with Danny Dooley standing up and shouting at the dead man’s widow, Siobhán Dooley, that “on my wife’s grave, ye won’t get an hour of luck, ye won’t get an hour of luck”.
Another member of the accused’s family, a woman, also shouted out that “it was in the hands of God” while another man associated with the accused shouted “that’s not justice” before Danny Dooley was led from the courtroom by prison officers.
Meanwhile Ms Dooley embraced her daughter, Noreen Harty, and her son-in-law Jamie Harty before turning to embrace Family Liaison Officer Gda Gillian McKeown and each member of the investigation team led by Det Supt Fergal Pattwell and Det Insp John Kelly.
Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring thanked the jury for their deliberations over the last seven weeks and told them she was adjourning sentencing until July 30th to allow for the preparation of Victim Impact Statements, but they were welcome to attend on that date if they wished.
During the trial which began at the start of June, Tom Dooley’s widow, Siobhán Dooley, said she and her husband Tom and their four youngest children had travelled from their home in Killarney to attend the funeral of their friend Bridget O’Brien at Rath Cemetery in Tralee.
Ms Dooley said her husband and their three young sons were a few steps of her and her young daughter as they entered the cemetery when she saw some men ahead and she recognised Tom’s brother, Patrick, and his brother-in-law and cousin Tom (the accused Thomas Snr).
There were two other men behind them but it was only when they came closer that she recognised they were two other accused, Michael and Danny Dooley, even though she thought initially that Danny was another member of the Dooley family who is not charged with any offence.
“I said to my husband ‘Run’ and he turned to me and said ‘Run? Run for what – I have nothing to run for’,” said Ms Dooley, adding that she turned around at that point and saw two other men, Thomas Dooley Jnr and a teenager, approaching from the gate of the cemetery.
She told how she and her four young children fled the cemetery after her husband told her to run, before he fell to the ground.
However, in his speech to the jury, Danny Dooley’s barrister, Brian McInerney SC said that the most profound piece of evidence in relation to his client was when Det Sgt Ernie Henderson admitted that he was surprised to hear Ms Dooley mention his client as being at the cemetery.
He said Ms Dooley had named in her statement someone who could not possibly have been in the graveyard that day and then testified that she meant Daniel, as the two men are “an awful lot alike” and that she just got confused about the names.
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