Bobby Ryan's daughter: 'I will never forgive Quirke for taking our world away from us'

Patrick Quirke was sentenced to life in prison for murdering part-time DJ Bobby Ryan at the Central Criminal Court after a 13-week hearing which was the longest murder trial in the history of the State.

Ms Ryan said "hate is a very strong word" which she doesn't like using, but said life for her and her family will never be the same again.

"I don't think there is any such thing as normal left for us - we're just under eight years of having our world turned inside out," she said in an interview on RTÉ Radio 1's Marian Finucane Show today.

"Justice is done but as far as we're concerned we're never going to have our father back. We have tears now more than ever."

Ms Ryan described Bobby Ryan, whose stage name was "Mr Moonlight", as "an exceptional man", the "absolute life and soul" of their world.

"The only word I could use to describe him was wow," she said.

"When he was behind his machine you could really feel his passion for music. He could walk into an empty room and get things dancing."

She described giving her father advice on his relationship with Mary Lowry, telling him it wasn't healthy and to break it off.

"I said Daddy, come on, at your age you don't need that, it's not healthy, cut your ties from it.

Stop it now. We were down this road with your head fried before. I'm not doing it again, No, stop now Daddy and think about it. You need to grab a hold of this situation.

Following a meeting between her father and Patrick Quirke in Thurles, Ms Ryan said that Quirke "had apologised for his carry on".

"They shook hands and that was it. I said, Daddy, please stop letting these people walk all over you."

Mr Ryan disappeared after leaving Mary Lowry's home at about 6.30am on June 3, 2011. Ms Ryan described the sense of panic she felt when she couldn't reach her father that day.

It was a beautiful day, the sun was beaming - little did we know that the sunshine was going to turn into the darkest place we could ever, ever possibly imagine to be in our lives and that was the disappearance of our father.

"My aunt and my uncle came with me in my car to look for him and I turned to my aunt in the car and I said, we're going to find Daddy or the van in the woods.

"I don't have any explanation of why I felt we were going to find him in the woods. I don't know want put the woods into my head but I had an awful sickening feeling."

She said she knew something was wrong when she hadn't heard from her father, who would usually ring her 20 times a day.

Mary Lowry told Ms Ryan that everything had been fine between them that morning and she was also trying to ring Mr Ryan but to no avail.

The pair met and went in Ms Lowry's car to the woods.

"When we came up to the woods, I don't think Mary's car had even pulled up and I had jumped out and ran towards the van, it was like I was running forever, I thought I'd never get there. I could never explain where that feeling came from, even nearly eight years on, I still can't explain it.

"I can remember June 3, that evening was relatively gone and the Defence Forces and search teams with us in the woods gathering information on Daddy and the helicopter was circulating up ahead of us.

That evening we stayed in the woods all evening and just before the shop closed - I went up and got a bottle of Lilt and a bar of fruit and nut in case Daddy did come out of the woods and he'd have something. I refused to come out of the woods that day.

Bobby Ryan's body was found in an underground run-off tank on the farm owned by Ms Lowry and leased by Quirke at Fawnagown, Tipperary, 22 months later on April 30, 2013.

Ms Ryan and her brother Robert moved to Cork following their father's disappearance, saying that it became too difficult to live in Tipperary.

"I will never move back to Tipperary even though we have wonderful precious memories of Daddy there," she said.