Quirke’s wife ‘believes real Mr Moonlight killer is free’
Dispatch from Tipperary:
THE routine is still the same. Once a day, Imelda Quirke takes to the roads with her three little Jack Russell dogs, powerwalking at break-neck speed, head held high.
Her route, one she used to pace in the company of husband Pat, takes her along the rural byways that lead from the Quirke family farm in Breansha, past the many neighbouring homesteads and into the bustling surrounds of Tipperary town.
Along Main Street, as she often did with Pat, she smiles and acknowledges the many locals who cross her path. Yes, she is the wife of the town’s most infamous son, a convicted murderer currently housed in Portlaoise prison, but in the eyes of Pat Quirke’s ever-loyal wife Imelda, it’s only a matter of time before he is back by her side.
An innocent man is in prison, she has been telling locals, and worse still, a murderer is walking the streets.
It’s been over six months since the longest-running murder trial in the history of the State came to a muchanticipated conclusion. The Mr Moonlight trial, a nod to the stage name of Bobby Ryan, the much-loved Cashel DJ found murdered at the bottom of a farm run-off tank in 2013, transfixed the nation.
Bobby had been dating Mary Lowry, Pat’s widowed sister-in-law, when he mysteriously went missing on the morning of June 3, 2011, having spent the previous night with Mary on her farm in Fawnagowan.
Pat had been having an affair with Mary, an affair that she ended to take up with Bobby, and Pat wasn’t best pleased to learn of her new love interest. In what is believed to have been a pre-planned killing, Pat decided to take matters into his own hands.
The prosecution case, laid out in all its sensational detail earlier this year, was that Pat, the jealous ex-lover, murdered his ‘love rival’ and hid him in the tank on Mary’s farm in a desperate bid to rekindle their romance.
After more than 20 hours of deliberation, a jury at the Central Criminal Court returned a majority verdict of guilty on May 1.
Pat Quirke, the unassuming dairy farmer from Tipperary, was sentenced to a mandatory life term for murder.
In the town where he grew up, a community torn apart by his inappropriate desire and greed, there was a collective sigh of relief at the outcome. As news filtered through last week that Quirke has been given a date in October to bring an appeal against his conviction, the overriding hope is that he stays where he is. ‘A lot of people would actually be quite fearful of Pat,’ said one local farmer, who previously did business with him.
‘There would be a concern about what he might do if he did get out. He is a very dangerous man and there is certainly no desire here to see him released.’ Quirke, according to sources, is very much focused on his appeal hearing, which is expected to last four days and is due to start on October 13, 2020. ‘He had been set on getting a date in August 2020 and that was the word around town, so no one was surprised with the date in October,’ said one source. ‘That’s what people close to the family were saying anyway.
‘He’s very much focused on getting back into court and clearing his name. Imelda has been telling people that he’s an innocent man and a murderer is walking the streets.’
Indeed, while Pat sits in his cell studying his trial transcript, Imelda has been keeping his farm business afloat. She makes twice-weekly visits to see him in Portlaoise, where she updates him on all the comings and goings on the farm. He in turn gives her instructions on what needs to be done and how to do it.
A few weeks after Pat’s incarceration, his eldest son, Liam, was made a director of the farm business as his father stepped aside. He had been studying agricultural science at UCD but is now back at home.
The sad irony of this is not lost on those once close to Pat, who say he ‘never wanted his sons to end up like him, forced into a life on the farm’.
Imelda, a woman described as a ‘survivor’ by those close to her, has been putting on a defiant front since her husband’s conviction.
The Lowry family have always been heavily involved in local GAA and Imelda (a Lowry before she married Quirke) is a stalwart supporter of her local club, Lattin-Cullen. As the trial ended and the summer months ensued, she was a familiar sight on the sidelines at various hurling games, cheering on as her son Gary took to the pitch.
‘She’s very much out and about and proud,’ said one source.
‘Out lunching with her sisters and in attendance at local funerals telling everyone about what a terrible misjustice has been done to Pat. She writes letters to him in prison keeping him up to speed with all that’s going on.’
Ironically, recent incoming mail at the Quirke home, located next to the farm in Breansha, has been a lot less love-filled.
According to sources, legal letters addressed to Pat Quirke, from the legal representatives of Bobby Ryan’s two children, Michelle and Robert, have been ‘flying in the door’ of Pat’s former home.
In July, it emerged that Bobby Ryan Jr and his sister Michelle are suing Quirke. The High Court actions are being classified as personal injuries actions, indicating Mr Ryan’s children will be seeking damages from their father’s murderer.
Quirke’s property empire, both home and abroad, is estimated to be worth around €2m. But he is believed
‘A lot of people would be quite fearful of Pat’
to have been hit with a €132,000 loss on one of his Polish property investments.
Quirke was one of a syndicate of Irish farmers who invested in a €21m office block in Warsaw during the boom years.
He is believed to have invested
€140,000, according to a source familiar with the scheme. Investors – including Quirke – got a return of 6% of their investment earlier this year, which works out at €8,400.
Quirke’s finances have suffered mixed fortunes since he murdered Bobby Ryan in 2011. A vulture fund took over his loans in January this year, according to land registry records.
The charges on three folios registered in the name of Quirke and his wife Imelda were transferred from the former Bank of Scotland Ireland to Pepper Finance in January this year, the records show.
Meanwhile, the woman at the centre of all the drama, Mary Lowry, has gone through what a close friend describes as a ‘transformation’.
She has survived the intense public interest in her private life and has moved on.
Mary is now living in a two-storey home on the outskirts of Bansha, Co. Tipperary. Her brother Eddie helped build the house, which is located on a plot of land willed to her by her late husband, Martin Lowry, the brother of Imelda Quirke. Long before the trial got under way, she was in a new relationship, happily coupled up with a farmer from a nearby town.
She has made no secret about her new boyfriend, John, and is regularly spotted with him in Nellie’s, her local pub in Bansha. The tightknit village community there, where she is involved in the Tidy Towns committee as well as the local set-dancing group, has been a sanctuary to her over the years.
Despite the shocking event that led to her leaving Fawnagowan, those close to her say she is happier in her new village life, where she can walk to the local shop and pub and where she feels like part of the community.
Life on the farm, on the isolated hill overlooking the mountains, left her lonely and lacking interaction.
‘Mary is just transformed,’ said the friend.
‘She is so happy to have the whole thing behind her and to just be able to get on with her life. She’s a very sociable person so for her to hide away just wouldn’t be in her nature. She has put down roots in the community and people in the village really like her, that’s the truth.
‘Even further into Tipperary town people have a lot of time for her. She was doing her shopping a while back, walking along with a trolley when a man approached her and told her to hold her head high, that she had nothing to be ashamed of. She’s out going to dances and enjoying herself with John.’
For many, however, the enigma that is Mary Lowry is still the source of constant local gossip.
Rumours that she was engaged were quickly found to be untrue, but still spread like wildfire.
More bizarrely, the gossip mill in town went into overdrive recently when a rumour that she had been visiting Pat in prison – using her maiden name Quigley – grew legs.
‘Someone said Mary had been seen at the prison visiting Pat,’ said the friend.
‘All total fabrication of course, but she just laughs it off. As if she would be going visiting him.’
Locals say people are still transfixed by the case.
In a macabre twist, after the trial had ended, a contingent of some of the regular attendees at court, mainly retirees, organised a trip to
Tipperary to visit the various locations mentioned in court.
As well as the woods where Bobby’s van was discovered, they made their way on to the Lowry farm to search out the underground tank where his remains were discovered.
The farm, still in the ownership of Mary Lowry, is being leased by a local farmer.
Mary’s mother-in-law Rita, who is now in her late 90s, remains at Fawnagowan, the place where she has lived for over 60 years.
She resides in the granny flat and Mary’s part of the house is rented out. Mary’s three sons, the eldest in his early 20s, have all moved on with their lives, concentrating on school and college and have no plans to take on the family tradition of farming.
For now, the fate of Fawnagowan, her late husband’s pride and joy, lies in Mary’s hands.
Mary has made no secret about her new boyfriend
Court regulars made a trip to murder tank