A MAN PROCLAIMED himself “innocent” this evening after a jury convicted him of murdering Thomas ‘Tom’ Dooley in “an honour killing” during a Co Kerry funeral.

He is the fifth man now convicted of the murder of the father-of-seven.

The victim’s cousin Michael Dooley (29), of the Halting Site, Carrigrohane Road, Cork was this evening found guilty of murder at Rath Cemetery, Rathass, Tralee, Co Kerry on October 5, 2022. Michael Dooley had pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.

The Central Criminal Court jury unanimously accepted the prosecution’s case that Michael Dooley had taken part in the joint enterprise to murder 42-year-old Thomas Dooley.

When the jury returned their unanimous verdict at 4.08pm today, Michael Dooley said aloud: “I didn’t harm my cousin judge, it’s not fair, I didn’t harm my cousin”.

His supporters who were sitting in the courtroom began to shout that the defendant was an innocent man.

Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring told Michael Dooley that if he had a submission to make it should be done through his counsel.

Michael Dooley went on to say that “an innocent man was going to prison”.

The jury of ten men and two women have now convicted five of the six defendants of murdering Thomas Dooley. It is the State’s contention that the six men had taken part in a “macabre provincial tragedy” by “butchering” the father-of-seven, which they said was carried out with “appalling, medieval violence”.

Last Friday, the jurors found Patrick Dooley (36) with an address at Arbutus Grove, Killarney guilty of a “biblical atrocity” by murdering his older brother on the same occasion.

The previous day the jury had convicted Mr Dooley’s cousin and brother-in-law Thomas Dooley Senior (43) and that man’s son, Thomas Dooley Junior (21), both of the Halting Site, Carrigrohane Road, Cork as well as a male teenager of murdering Mr Dooley. All four defendants had pleaded not guilty to the charges.

It is the prosecution case that Mr Dooley died when he was violently attacked by six men as he attended a funeral at Rath Cemetery and suffered what the State described as savage injuries, inflicted by a group armed with bladed weapons and acting with “focused and murderous ferocity” in broad daylight.

Thomas Dooley Jnr was also found guilty last Thursday of assault causing harm to Siobhán Dooley at Rath Cemetery on the same date. He had also denied the charge.

The jury will return to the Central Criminal Court sitting at Cork Courthouse, Anglesea Street on Thursday to consider their verdict in relation to the last defendant on the indictment, who is also charged with murdering Thomas Dooley.

The remaining defendant is the victim’s cousin Daniel Dooley (42) of An Carraigin, Connolly Park, Tralee, Co Kerry. He has pleaded not guilty to murdering the deceased on the same occasion.

The jury began their deliberations at 10.41am last Wednesday morning and have taken 16 hours and 53 minutes over four days to return guilty verdicts in respect of five of the six defendants. All five verdicts were unanimous.

The 12 jurors have the option of returning two verdicts in relation to the murder charge against the sixth defendant Daniel Dooley namely; guilty of murder or an outright acquittal.

Ms Justice Ring told the jurors to “leave it all behind them” tonight and sent them away for the evening. She asked them to return to the Central Criminal Court to continue their deliberations on Thursday morning, telling them: “The court can’t sit for various reasons tomorrow”.

The trial heard that the deceased suffered a total of four stabbing injuries following the attack in the Kerry graveyard, one of which severed the femoral artery in his leg and caused him to suffer a fatal blood loss.

State pathologist Dr Sally Anne Collis has told the jury that some of the injuries involved could have been inflicted by a machete-type weapon.

In her charge to the jurors over four days, Ms Justice Ring told them that if they find that any of the defendants were involved in the attack and knew their co-accused was carrying a weapon, then they are guilty of murder.

“If you are satisfied that each of these men knew there were knives or bladed weapons and they involved themselves in the attack, then they were all participating in the murder,” she said.

The judge had also reminded the jury in her charge that there was no allegation to suggest Mr Dooley himself was in possession of a bladed weapon, nor any suggestion of violence on his part or evidence that there was some kind of event taking place that he somehow got caught up in and got injured.

In relation to the legal issue of joint participation in the charge, the judge said that for any of the defendants to be convicted of murder, each must be found to have assisted the commission of the crime and must have intended by their actions to assist.

She added that if the jury was not sure if all of the accused were in possession of a weapon, the law says that if an accused person knew that their co-accused was carrying a weapon, they knew that he intended to act to cause murder or serious injury.

Ms Justice Ring said that if the jury was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that one or more of the accused was either there or there with the necessary intentions, then the jury must look at each accused individually and make decisions based on each of the accused.