Chapter 16: Sunday 1 May

JJ Muggivan

After the Monaghans had left Brendan, who said he was going to sleep in a hayshed, it seems that he went back to his grandmother’s and she let him stay for the night. Mary Quinn did not want her family to know that she was helping him. Brendan now had no transportation again and he was becoming more desperate and panicky.

There were no other known sightings of Brendan until the following day. On Sunday 1 May, Margaret Maher visited her brother, Fr Joseph Walsh, with her children. It had not yet been reported that Imelda and Liam Riney were missing.

Fr Walsh knew Mary Quinn and brought Communion to her. He had mentioned Brendan to his sister on one occasion, when clothes had disappeared from his house. Brendan had known Fr Walsh’s predecessors and had had access to the house in the past. On advice from the guards, the priest had had the locks changed. He had met Brendan at the baptism of Ann Marie’s baby son for whom Brendan had stood as godfather, but other than that, he did not know him.

Margaret Maher noticed Brendan hovering around the rectory while Fr Walsh and the children were playing hurling. He didn’t talk to them, but just stood staring. Fr Walsh’s niece, Edel, said to her mother in a loud voice that there was ‘a quare fella’ watching them. Margaret Maher was embarrassed and told her daughter that she shouldn't blurt out something like that, as Brendan was a parishioner of Fr Joe’s.

After the game, the priest brought his nieces and nephews for a drive. They stopped for ice-cream before heading home to Crosspatrick in County Kilkenny.

Little is known of Brendan’s movements from Sunday afternoon, 1 May, until Ann Marie met him at their grandmother’s house on Tuesday 3 May.

Brendan remained in the Eyrecourt area until late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning. He had no transportation and hitch-hiking was now dangerous. Ann Marie describes seeing her brother on Tuesday:

Just to comment briefly on the day I last had contact with Brendan [Tuesday 3 May 1994 in the afternoon], he was agitated, locking windows at my grandmother’s house, opening doors, closing doors, and he was getting on my nerves as he continued to do this. I had a row or argument with him.

Later I became aware he had a gun and told him to go. He said he wasn’t going to do anything to anyone that he only had it as protection. All I wanted him to do was leave the house as the gun was frightening me and so was he. He said, ‘They’re out there and they are coming.’ I couldn’t see anybody outside.

My grandparents and my son were also in the house at the time. He calmed down for a while and he ate a meal with me. Then he was just laughing at nothing and then he just left the house. I didn’t know where he went nor did he say where he was going.

I returned later that evening to my flat in Portumna with my son. The next day I had a phone call from my grandmother saying there was some woman and a little boy missing in Whitegate. I told her I didn’t know them at all as to which I didn’t. After the phone call, the guards called to my flat and asked me was Brendan there. I said he wasn’t and that they could look if they wanted to as I hadn’t seen him since the evening before at my grandmother’s house.

I sensed immediately that there was something wrong but I did not know what it was. I told the guards that he had a gun and watched the news all that day and later that evening went to my grandmother’s house again. I didn’t know what was going on.

I didn’t really know Fr Walsh well as I lived in Portumna not Eyrecourt. He christened my son and that was the only contact I ever had with him as I already said during my evidence at the

trial. Brendan also met Fr Walsh once and that was at my son’s christening.

According to Ann Marie and her grandmother, Brendan did not return to the house again.