A 17-year-old has been jailed for eight years for the murder of a father of five who was beaten to death with a golf club outside his home in Doneraile, Co Cork, in October of last year.

A trial at the Central Criminal Court in Cork heard Barry Daly had his jaw broken into fragments in an attack in the early hours of October 12th, 2025. The 44-year-old was left unable to breathe as he was inhaling a large amount of blood. He died of cardio-respiratory arrest. A broken head of a golf club was found not far from his body.

Last month Alex Deady (21) of Glenview, Convent Road, Doneraile, Co Cork, was jailed for life for the murder of Daly. On Friday, his two co-accused, a 17-year-old who was convicted of the same murder, and a 16-year-old who pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Daly, appeared before a sitting of the Central Criminal Court in Cork for sentencing,

Judge Siobhan Lankford noted that the evening of October 11th, 2025, in Doneraile was a joyous time for the town. The local team had won the Junior B hurling championship. Nearly the “entire town was on Main Street” as the players were given a lap of honour.

The judge said various brawls had ensued outside a pub in the town at closing time. The evidence was that the murder happened after Daly struck Deady’s girlfriend outside the pub. Accounts varied as to whether it was accidental or deliberate.

Jurors were told Deady was incensed that his “woman” had been hit. Lankford said that as a result the three young men had gone on an “armed retaliatory expedition” to Daly’s home.

In sentencing the 17-year-old accused, the judge acknowledged that there was “very little evidence as to what occurred” in the early hours of October 12th outside Daly’s home in Rockview Terrace.

She said the evidence had been that Katie O’Reilly, the long-time partner of the deceased, had been lying in her bed when she heard a voice saying, “I’m going to kill you.” She then heard a “whack”. The judge said O’Reilly went outside her home and found her partner lying dead on the ground.

“He died almost immediately.”

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The judge said that when the three young males approached Daly outside his home, “each of the individuals had a golf club in their hand”.

Lankford stated that it was a mitigating factor that the 17-year-old had pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the case. However, she noted that his plea was not acceptable to the DPP. She said Deady had told gardaí that he hit Daly once. Deady insisted he was the only person who struck Daly.

By way of mitigation the judge noted that he was studying for the Leaving Certificate applied in Oberstown, had no previous convictions, and had shown remorse in the case.

The judge accepted that the youth hailed from a “positive, supportive family”. She also acknowledged that he had written a letter of apology to the Deady family.

Lankford said she accepted a mandatory life sentence should only be imposed in exceptional circumstances when it involves a child or adolescent.

She sentenced the youth to 11 years, suspending the last three years to facilitate his integration back into the community. The 17-year-old also received a two-year sentence, which will run concurrently, for assaulting a man earlier on the same evening.

Meanwhile, in sentencing the 16-year-old for manslaughter, the judge noted he was a “secondary juvenile participant” whose role was not as significant as that of the other teenager. An aggravating factor was that the 16-year-old had been captured on CCTV footage carrying a broken golf club on the night of the attack.

Setting a headline sentence of three years and taking a positive report into account, she sentenced the teenager to 2½ years in detention, suspending the final six months of the sentence. The guilty plea was taken into account in sentencing,