Always appreciate the value of having good neighbours
Country Living with Francis Farragher
The publicity has eased . . . the stories have moved on in the national papers and RTE . . . and the case that gripped a nation for weeks on end has been consigned to ‘for the record’ category. Sure, the inevitable appeal (and the book or books) will follow as the legal eagles try to find some failing in law that could end up freeing Tipperary dairy farmer Patrick Quirke for the life sentence that he’s just starting for the murder of Bobby Ryan aka Mr. Moonlight.
All the comparisons have been made with the classic John B. Keane play The Field but really that piece of carefully crafted drama, just didn’t have half the components that made up the sum of the Mr. Moonlight murder trial.
The field was essentially a tale of a love of the land . . . nay, not really love, but an absolute obsession and jealousy over the purchase of a field that the Bull McCabe had rented for most of his life but was denied the eventual purchase of by an overseas bidder.
It was a play where love really didn’t feature in, if anything the work was remarkable for the absence of anything resembling love, lust, sexual desire or romantic jealousy.
In the case of Patrick Quirke and Mary Lowry, all the other pieces were added in to what was a gripping real-life drama for those looking at it from a distance.
It really was only when the daughter of Mr. Moonlight, Michelle Ryan spoke with such affection and love for her late father, that we the audience, began to realise what a horrible saga that had unfolded for a brother and sister, who had lost a father in the most brutal fashion imaginable.
All through this trial, the thought struck me, that it isn’t it one of the gifts of the world to have good and genuine neighbours, who will always look out for you, do a good turn for you when they can, and certainly do you no harm.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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