I WILL TELL YOUR WIFE OF AFFAIR WITH MARY
Mr Moonlight’s threat to his love rival months before his murder:
MURDERED DJ Bobby Ryan threatened to tell his love rival Pat Quirke’s wife about her husband’s secret affair with Mary Lowry months before he was killed by him, a new book reveals.
Pat Quirke, 50, was sentenced to life in prison earlier this year after he was found guilty of murdering Bobby Ryan and hiding his remains in an underground tank on Mary Lowry’s farm.
A new book on the case, The Murder Of Mr Moonlight, reveals that the DJ, whose stage name was Mr Moonlight, confided in a friend that he told Quirke to leave Ms Lowry alone, during an infamous meeting between the men at Hayes’s Hotel in Thurles. If he didn’t, Mr Ryan warned, he would tell Quirke’s wife Imelda about the affair.
During Quirke’s trial for murder, the jury was told that both men, together with Mary
Lowry, met at Hayes’s Hotel in January 2011. The meeting took place several weeks after Quirke took Mary’s phone and texted Bobby Ryan telling him: ‘I’m the man.’ Evidence in the trial included claims from Quirke that after an hour-long chat at the hotel to resolve the animosity between parties, the two men shook hands and parted company.
However, Bobby later told a friend that he had used the meeting to warn Pat to leave Mary alone: ‘Bobby basically said: “Mary is single and I am single, so we are doing nothing wrong.” He told Pat that he had a wife that he should go home to and concentrate on and that if he didn’t leave Mary alone, he would tell the wife about the affair. He told Pat to get professional help and Pat said he would.’
Five months later, Quirke murdered Bobby and threw his body into an underground water run-off tank on Mary’s farm. He lay undiscovered for 22 months, until his killer ‘found him’ in what was an elaborate, staged discovery. Quirke’s trial for the killing was the longest murder trial in the history of the State. The book also reveals:
Bobby’s attempts to get his exgirlfriend Mary Glasheen and Mary Lowry to become ‘friends’.
Mary Lowry’s ‘tears in the ladies toilets’ over Quirke’s call to social services.
A psychic told Mary that Bobby was dead after being ‘struck from behind’ and that he had met her late husband Martin on the other side and that there was ‘no animosity’ between the men.
Gardaí dug up thousands of tonnes of sand in a quarry next to Mary’s farm after a sniffer dog detected ‘the scent of death’.
Quirke showed up at a search for
Bobby and asked volunteers, ‘Well, any sign?’ in the knowledge that the DJ’s body was in the tank.
Quirke’s arrest for burglary in
March 2013 involved a previously unrevealed incident of him suspiciously prowling around Mary’s farm.
The events of August 8, 2012, the day Quirke’s 11-year-old son was killed on the farm after his father accidentally ran over him.
Quirke’s wife, Imelda, was arrested on suspicion of withholding information in June 2014.
The moment Quirke was arrested and charged with murder (in the milking parlour of his farm) by local Garda Detective Inspector Paddy O’Callaghan, who went to the same school as him. This arrest was not included in the trial. Mr O’Callaghan drew on his local
‘Bobby told Pat to get professional help’ ‘Murder case was four years in the making’
knowledge and relationships in the community to build a murder case against Quirke that was four years in the making.
Gardaí believe Quirke used an intricate back-route, criss-crossing Bansha woods to make his way back to his car undetected after leaving Bobby’s van in the car park where it was later discovered.
Gardaí believe secret surveillance on Mary’s farm alerted Quirke that Bobby was staying over, the night before he was murdered.