A pathologist has told a murder trial that a 44-year-old postman suffered such a "forceful blow or blows" that his jaw was broken into fragments, whilst the subsequent inhaling of a large amount of blood to the lungs rendered him unable to breathe.
Alex Deady (21) from Glenview, Convent Road, Doneraile, and the two young men aged 16 and 17, have pleaded not guilty to the murder of Barry Daly in Doneraile on October 12th, 2025. Deady and the older teenager have pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of the father of five.
Today at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork, Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster told the jury that she carried out the postmortem on Daly. She said she had been informed that he had been found with head injuries and subsequently died outside the home of his partner in the early hours of October 12th, 2025.
Dr Bolster attended the scene at Rockview Terrace in Doneraile at lunchtime on October 12th, 2025. She indicated that there was a pool of blood under the head of the deceased. There was also blood on his face and spots of blood staining on the upper left side of the body and on the left arm. A smearing of blood was also detected on a jacket and a runner worn by Daly.
An organ donor card was among the possessions found in the clothing of the deceased. Dr Bolster said that the broken head of a golf club was also at the scene. There was no evidence of offensive or defensive injuries.
Dr Bolster said that the lungs of the deceased were four times the normal weight as the injuries had caused an “awful lot of blood to go down” to the primary organs of the respiratory system. She stated that the “most serious trauma” was to the right side of the jaw causing multiple fragmentary fractures. There was also a fracture of the palate bone.
The pathologist said that there was evidence of "very severe forceful blow or blows" to the right side of the mandible with very extensive fractures to the mandible and a fractured dislocation on the left temporal mandible joint. The jaw was dislocated from where it attaches to the skull on the left side.
Dr Bolster said that Daly was unable get air into his lungs.
"And without oxygen, you die. You have blood in the windpipe, blood in the mouth, you have these fractures, you just cannot get air in."
Dr Bolster said that the cause of death was cardio-respiratory arrest due to severe facial and head trauma complicated by aspiration and blood. The presence of alcohol and cocaine in the system was also a “contributory factor." She said that alcohol and cocaine could accelerate the death, but were not the cause of the passing of Daly.
Meanwhile, a teenager previously told the trial said that he saw the three accused coming from the direction of the home of Barry Daly in the early hours of October 12th, 2025. He said that he said hello to the three young men, but failed to receive a response.
The witness, who can’t be named because he is a juvenile, said that he heard yelling and somebody saying, “Barry thought he was smart, hitting a girl. He is laid out now.”
The trial has heard evidence that Barry Daly struck a young woman in the mouth outside Eily’s Bar in Doneraile just hours before he was found injured in the driveway of his home. Some witnesses have said the punch was deliberate, whilst others have expressed the belief that it was accidental.
The trial will continue on Thursday in front of a jury of seven women and five men.
