‘I DID NOT WANT TO BE AROUND PATRICK QUIRKE’
Son of woman at centre of ‘love triangle’ murder trial recalls his dislike of accused
MARY Lowry’s eldest son didn’t like spending time with the man accused of murdering her boyfriend ‘one bit’, a court has heard.
Tommy Lowry, 21, told a packed courtroom that he felt Patrick Quirke had ‘made himself at home’ in the family house after his father’s death.
‘I didn’t feel like he belonged inside the house but he was there,’ he said.
Mr Quirke, 50, of Breanshamore, Co. Tipperary, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of 52-year-old Bobby Ryan – a DJ known as Mr Moonlight – on a date between
I WAS HAPPY FOR BOBBY WHEN HE BEGAN SEEING MARY, SAYS HIS EX-GIRLFRIEND
June 3, 2011 and April 2013. Tommy Lowry was giving evidence after several of his late father Martin’s siblings told jurors that they were ‘happy’ for Mary Lowry when they learned she was in a new relationship with Bobby Ryan, the DJ Mr Quirke is accused of murdering.
The DJ, known as Mr Moonlight, was missing for almost two years before his body was found in a waste tank on farm land owned by Ms Lowry and leased to Mr Quirke, who she said she previously had an affair with.
Mary Lowry’s son Tommy said that the accused started farming his father’s land ‘more or less straight away’ after his father died. At first Mr Quirke wasn’t around much but as time went on he came to the house ‘a lot more and made himself at home’.
He added: ‘I didn’t feel like he belonged inside my house, but he was there.’
He also remembered a family holiday with the accused and told prosecuting counsel David Humphries BL, that he didn’t like to spend time with Mr Quirke. He added: ‘I didn’t like it one bit. That’s just the way it was.’
Mr Lowry, who was nine when his father died, said Mr Quirke would often ‘give out about thing’s going missing’.
‘It would be us [Tommy and the middle brother Jack, not the youngest brother Michael] that
‘He said he sold her passport’
‘She felt quite happy’
would be blamed,’ Mr Lowry said.
He told the court about two occasions when he overheard arguments between his mother and Mr Quirke.
On one occasion he was in his room doing his homework when he heard Patrick Quirke ‘giving out about a ladder going missing’.
‘My mother said, “And where is my passport?,”’ said the witness.
‘He said he had sold it,’ he added.
Another time, in the summer of 2012, he said he heard ‘Pat Quirke telling my mum not to go to his son Alan’s month’s mind.’
Mr Lowry told the court that his mother responded by saying she would go.
Bobby Ryan went missing in June 2011 and his body was found in a run-off tank on the farm leased by the accused at Fawnagown, Tipperary in April 2013. The prosecution claims that Mr Quirke murdered Mr Ryan so that he could get back with the deceased’s girlfriend Mary Lowry, 52, with whom the accused had previously had an alleged affair.
Earlier, Mary Lowry’s brother-inlaw Jimmy told the court the murder accused knew of the existence of the run-off tank where Bobby Ryan’s body was found two years after his disappearance.
The witness told prosecuting counsel David Humphries BL the tank was built in the late 1970s to take waste from his father’s milking parlour. When Mr Humphries asked him who knew about the existence of the tank he said: ‘As far as I know myself, my brother Johnny and Pat Quirke.’
His brother Johnny also gave evidence and told how he had his ‘suspicions’ there was something going on between his sister-in-law and Patrick Quirke.
After his brother died he said he noticed that the relationship between Ms Lowry and Mr Quirke had changed.
‘They seemed to be close... closer than normally,’ he said.
Johnny told the court he had heard the news about her relationship with Bobby Ryan at the 18th birthday party of his niece Aoife.
‘I was happy for her. I wished her well,’ he said of Ms Lowry, explaining that he had rung her.
Asked how she had responded, he replied: ‘Good.’
Questioned about how he felt in light of the fact that she had previously been married to his brother who had passed away, Johnny Lowry said: ‘Yes, I was happy that she had met someone.’
He subsequently met Bobby Ryan and found him ‘grand’ but said he had only been talking to him for a few minutes.
Mr Lowry described a ‘happy’ childhood growing up on the farm with his brother Martin. When their father died, Martin had taken over the farm. He married Mary and they had three sons.
Asked how Mr Quirke and Martin had got on, Mr Lowry replied: ‘Quite well.’ They would share machinery or do things together on the farm, he added.
Jimmy Lowry said he too had learned of Mary Lowry’s new relationship at the 18th birthday party his brother had given evidence about, which was his daughter’s.
Asked about how Mary Lowry felt about that new relationship, he replied: ‘She felt quite happy.’
His sister Mary Carey told the Central Criminal Court trial that she was also happy that Mary Lowry was seeing someone, and sent her a text message to wish her well.
Later, local woman Clare O’Grady told the court that she saw a silver van parked on a laneway that leads to her home on the morning that Mr Ryan went missing.
She said she thought it unusual as she leaves for work at 6.45am, lives on a quiet country lane and had never before seen any vehicles there at that hour. The van was parked in a gateway but with the rear sticking out onto the road so that she had to drive around it.
The trial has previously heard that the deceased drove a silver van which was found at a nearby woods the day he went missing.