MARY LOWRY was born in May 1966 and came from Newport in Co Tipperary. She grew up on a small farm. After secondary school she did a secretarial course and worked in a meat company in Limerick, at first on reception and later in accounts.
She married Martin Lowry in 1995 and moved to his family farm at Fawnagowan in Tipperary. They had three sons and shared the family home with Martin’s mother Rita.
Martin Lowry died from cancer in September 2007. Mary Lowry told the court she was "completely lost" and vulnerable after her husband’s death and knew nothing about farming or finance. Her husband’s brother-in-law, Pat Quirke, who was married to Martin’s sister Imelda and had been the best man at their wedding, began helping her out on the farm and advising her on financial matters.
She said their friendship developed in January 2008 into a sexual affair. In the witness box, she said she was ashamed of what she described as this "seedy affair", which she explained was probably due to the fact that she had not been intimate with a man for some time due to her husband’s illness.
She said at first Pat Quirke was good to her but became increasingly controlling and manipulative, and was demanding of her time and money. In 2010, she met Bobby Ryan and began a relationship. She said she "loved him to bits" and had introduced him to her family and her in-laws who were happy for her.
Ms Lowry said Pat Quirke had tried to sabotage the relationship, on one occasion taking her phone and texting Bobby Ryan to tell him she was with him now. Under intense cross-examination, she was accused by defence counsel of trying to settle scores and of putting the boot in to Patrick Quirke at every opportunity.
Defence counsel Bernard Condon suggested she was concerned about her reputation. She said she was because her whole life was being discussed in the court room and she had "bared her soul" in her statement. She also denied adding in "devious lies" and "pieces of poison" to her evidence, at one point declaring: "I am not on trial here."
BOBBY RYAN was a 52-year-old who worked as a driver in a quarry and was also a well-known DJ in Tipperary. The trial heard he was fiercely proud of his stage name "Mr Moonlight", which was emblazoned across the windscreen of his silver Citroen van used to transport his music equipment. He was born in Cashel in Co Tipperary and until the time of his death, lived in a small village outside the town.
He had been previously married to Mary Ryan and had a daughter Michelle and a son Robert. Michelle told the trial her father was "one of a kind", and always had a smile on his face.
She described him as a "brilliant father", a man who never missed a day’s work and at weekends had a passion for his music and for dancing. In 2010, he met Mary Lowry through a mutual acquaintance and they began a relationship, sharing a love of dancing. The weekend before his disappearance in June 2011 he and Mary Lowry had gone away for a weekend to Bundoran.
Ms Lowry told the trial they had argued over the weekend because she felt Mr Ryan had not spent enough time with her and had spent too long talking to another woman. She said afterwards she realised it was just "Bobby being Bobby" because he was friendly with everyone. She said they had split temporarily but just days later had resolved their differences.
On 2 June, he had come over to her house in the evening and had stayed over, leaving at the usual time the next morning to go home and change for work. He did not show up for work that day and was never seen alive by friends or family again.
PATRICK QUIRKE is a 50-year-old farmer from Breanshamore in Co Tipperary. He is married to Imelda Quirke (nee Lowry), who is the sister of the late Martin Lowry, Mary Lowry’s husband. The couple had three children, one of whom was killed in a farm accident in 2012, aged 11.
Seen as a progressive dairy farmer and entrepreneur, alongside his farming business he also had a number of property investments and was a member of a local investment club. The court was told he had no criminal history and had never come to garda attention before 2011.
He began an affair with Mary Lowry months after the death of her husband Martin, his close friend and brother-in-law. He and Martin had a shared interest in farming and investments and he offered to advise Mary Lowry on some of investments for a return in a 50:50 share of the profits.
He also entered into a seven-year lease agreement to use her farm at Fawnagowan, paying an annual fee of €12,600. However, with the single farm payment, the actual cost to him of leasing the 60-acre farm was in fact just €1,600 a year.
In his garda interviews he denied using Mary Lowry for money and sex. He said their relationship was built on companionship, intimacy, trust and honesty and denied that he had tried to control her. Their affair was rekindled for a short time after the disappearance of Bobby Ryan but ended again.
He told gardaí their theories about staging the discovery of Bobby Ryan’s body did not make any sense and consistently denied any knowledge of the circumstances of Mr Ryan’s disappearance or his death.
Throughout the trial he took copious notes, frequently handing his solicitor "post-it" notes during witness testimony and during legal argument in the absence of the jury.
His wife, who accompanied him to court every day for three months also took extensive notes in a small black notebook as she sat directly behind Bobby Ryan’s family in Court 13.
