A young bar manager who struck a single punch to a 60-year-old man causing him to fall backwards and sustain a traumatic brain injury has been cleared by a jury of manslaughter.
A jury at Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court unanimously found 28-year-old Vincent (Jimmy) Connolly, of Cedar Hill in Westport, Co Mayo, not guilty of unlawfully killing Peter McDermott in the early hours of 10 September 2023.
Large numbers of relatives and friends of both Mr Connolly and Mr McDermott gathered in the court since last Wednesday to hear the details of what Judge Eoin Garavan described as "an appalling tragedy for both families".
Following the unanimous verdict, Judge Garavan told Mr Connolly: "You have been cleared by the jury. You are innocent. You remain an innocent man."
The judge went on to say that whatever happened on the night of the tragedy, Mr McDermott had been "a hardworking, decent, honourable gentleman" whose incalculable loss had left his family entirely bereft.
Similar compliments about Mr Connolly had been expressed in court during the course of the hearing, Judge Garavan noted.
The incident in which Mr McDermott sustained fatal head injuries occurred outside The Clock Tavern in Westport.
Neither party to the incident were known to each other.
Over the course of the trial, it emerged that both men had been drinking heavily prior to the fatal incident.
Mr Connolly had been in The Clock Tavern at a charity event with a friend having earlier attended a wedding at Westport Country Lodge several kilometres from Westport.
The initial contact was when Mr McDermott lunged towards Mr Connolly and then knocked him to the ground.
Thereafter, Mr Connolly struck Mr McDermott with a blow to the face and he was immediately propelled backwards and fell on the ground and suffered injuries from which he did not recover.
The defence contended Mr Connolly acted in self defence but the prosecution maintained that it was an unlawful assault and that Mr Connolly intended to cause more than trivial injury.
Closing the case on behalf of the prosecution, senior counsel Patricia McLoughlin said video footage showed there was a push on the accused by Mr McDermott which should never have happened.
She said Mr McDermott had been pushing Mr Connolly to get him out of the way or get through him.
She claimed that from the moment Mr Connolly got off the ground his manner and demeanour was aggressive towards Mr McDermott.
"When he got up off the ground you can see from his body language that he was angry, was remonstrating with Mr McDermott and ultimately he hit a punch.
"Once he stood up and confronted Mr McDermott it was clear that Mr Connolly was the aggressor."
She said that in all of the circumstances the offence of manslaughter was proven.
In his closing submission, Dean Kelly, senior counsel on behalf of the defence, rejected the suggestion by the prosecution that when Mr Connolly was on the ground Peter McDermott was walking away.
"That is preposterous. You can look at the footage for a thousand hours and look at it a thousand times and not see Mr McDermott walk away and not see Jimmy Connolly reach and drag a reluctant Peter McDermott back into a fight, a fight that he was walking away from."
Mr Kelly said nobody was making the case that Peter McDermott was a hooligan or a thug in the way he lived his life.
It appeared to be beyond question that he was a man who worked hard all his life.
What is beyond doubt, counsel stated, is that for maybe ten minutes, perhaps for an hour, Peter McDermott on that night in September 2023 departed from his ordinary mode of conduct for whatever reason.
Counsel said Mr Connolly believed himself to be in immediate threat of assault or injury.
Over the course of the trial, evidence was given that on the night of the incident, Mr McDermott had been drinking in a number of pubs, had been obstreperous, had been refused entry to a pub and was agitated and argumentative.
Mr McDermott, one of a family of nine born in Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim, had been very successful in the construction business working in London and New York before coming back to Ireland with his wife and daughter and building a house at Murrisk in Westport.
At the close of the trial, Mr Connolly, who had been a bar manager at Hewetson's Pub in Westport, walked into the body of the court where he was hugged by family members.
