Neighbours did not recognise Tom Niland due to injuries sustained in alleged home invasion
Anna and Fiona Calpin said they only realised it was Tom Niland when he spoke to say he had been 'robbed' by three men.
A paramedic also told the court Mr Niland was 'crying blood' as a result of the multiple traumatic injuries he sustained to his face and skull.
John Irving (31), of Shanwar, Foxford, Co Mayo, is on trial accused of breaking into Mr Niland's house along with Francis Harman (58), of Nephin Court, Killala Road, Ballina, Co Mayo, and John Clarke (37), of Carrowkelly, Ballina, on January 18th, 2022.
READ MORE
Mr Irving is alleged to have assaulted Mr Niland, leaving him with injuries that caused his death more than 20 months later, on September 30th, 2023. He was 75 when he died.
Mr Irving is accused of unlawfully killing Mr Niland at his home at Doonflynn, Skreen, Co Sligo. He is also accused of entering the house as a trespasser and causing Mr Niland serious harm. He is further alleged to have intentionally or recklessly caused serious harm to Mr Niland and to have falsely imprisoned him. Mr Irving has pleaded not guilty to all four charges.
Anna Calpin told Tony McGillicuddy SC, prosecuting, that she was walking around outside her home opposite Mr Niland's house with her daughter Fiona when they noticed cars slowing down on the road. They went to see what was happening and saw a man on the road.
'As we approached he was standing in the middle of the road with his hands out in front of him, he couldn't see anything and we didn't know who it was,' she said.
'When we got closer to him, the first thing we heard was, 'I was robbed', and then we realised it was Tom.'
The witness said Mr Niland's face was 'totally distorted', his eyes were swollen and shut, and there was a lot of blood. She said he had a runner on one foot and a shoe on the other but neither was laced up.
She recalled Mr Niland telling her his doorbell rang and when he opened the door, three men wearing masks appeared and pushed him into his hallway. He said they took his wallet, which contained €800 or €900.
Ms Calpin brought Mr Niland into her home and called an ambulance and the Garda.
Fiona Calpin said Mr Niland was 'unrecognisable' until he spoke.
Anna Calpin's husband, David Calpin, said he was in his workshop when his daughter came in and said Mr Niland had been 'robbed and assaulted'.
Mr Calpin went inside to his neighbour before going across to Mr Niland's house where he saw blood 'running down the glass of the front door', on the driveway and the road. A pair of tights or nylons lay on the driveway. He said he realised it was a crime scene so he left to wait for gardaí to come.
George Williams, who works in the ambulance service in Co Sligo, told Mr McGillicuddy he went into the Calpin home and saw Mr Niland with a towel wrapped around his head.
When Mr Williams removed the towel, he saw multiple injuries around Mr Niland's face, head and skull. He said Mr Niland's eyes were 'completely swollen shut and he had the appearance as if he was crying blood.'
Given Mr Niland's age and the level of trauma, Mr Williams believed the injuries were potentially life threatening so he decided to immediately remove him to an ambulance.
Dr Martin Caldwell told Mr McGillicuddy he was the emergency surgeon on duty at Sligo University Hospital when Mr Niland arrived. He said Mr Niland had suffered 'serious and life threatening injuries'.
Scans revealed bleeding to the brain, a fracture to the floor of the orb of the right eye and multiple broken ribs on his right side, the court heard.
Despite the brain injury, doctors decided it was not necessary to send him to the Beaumont Hospital in Dublin for surgery.
Between January 20th and January 26th, Mr Niland made progress and was able to sit on a chair. However, his condition deteriorated at that point and he became more drowsy. He required a ventilator to help him breathe and doctors decided to place him on life support in the intensive care unit.
By early March, he had made no progress, Dr Caldwell said, and a consultant neurologist took over his care.
Another witness, John Scott, told Mr McGillicuddy he was part of a group of kayakers who were heading out on Lough Easkey in Co Sligo four days after the assault on Mr Niland.
As he was placing a kayak into the water, he said he noticed something unusually square under a couple of inches of water by the side of the lake.
When he took it from the water he realised it was a wallet. He phoned a friend who is a garda and told him the name Tom Niland was on the ID inside the wallet. He said he did not know the significance of it at the time, but about one hour later, Garda Elaine McAndrew arrived at Lough Easkey and took possession of the wallet.
The trial continues before Ms Justice Eileen Creedon and a jury of eight women and four men.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Daily Mirror
26 minutes ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
'Despair is this morning draped like dark bunting over Barefield'
Despair is this morning draped like ominous, dark bunting over the Clare village of Barefield. The reverberations of the gun shots which ended the lives of Vanessa Whyte and her teenage children, James and Sara Rutledge, 150 miles away in Fermanagh echo in a haunting, incomprehensible volley across the 45-year-old's home place. Even under the July sunshine, Barefield is a place without light, the mood, to borrow from a 1950s Deep South preacher describing the climate of horror during that decade of serial Mississippi lynchings, blacker than a thousand midnights. A family wiped out, endless hopes and dreams expunged, heartbeats stilled in the heartbeat it takes to squeeze a cold trigger. The flag of decency flies at half-mast. Parents, lost for words, hug tightly to their offspring. Vanessa had studied veterinary medicine, a woman with a vocational urge to bring compassion into the world of struggling creatures, to ease their distress. Vanessa Whyte, pictured here wearing a Clare GAA jersey, alongside her children Sara Rutledge and James Rutledge (Image: The Police Service of Northern Ireland) For many years she was a camogie player, most vibrantly alive when she stepped onto a rectangle of grass, hurl in hand, and felt that exhilarating dopamine rush of sporting combat course through the entirety of her being. Her sense of place is self-evident in a beautiful photograph of James, Sara and herself attending a Clare hurling match, most likely one of the games on their run to 2024 All-Ireland glory, a milestone clinched a year to the week before the brutal tragedy. Vanessa stands between her two children, a protective, affectionate arm draped around each of their shoulders. The three of them, pillars supporting the others' lives. A portico of love. All are uniformed in The Banner's saffron and gold colours. Sara wears a Clare training top, her flowing mane held back by one of the headbands which are a fashion item on big match days. James, smiling blissfully, is blanketed by a county flag. Vanessa's county jersey, a badge of identity, is proudly on display beneath an unzipped sleeveless jacket. Though her eyes are hidden beneath sunglasses, her pride and maternal affection are strikingly evident in every pixel. Two decades living outside Clare, but the fire of place still burning at her core. Forever a daughter of the Banner. And though her children were affiliated with GAA clubs in Fermanagh, that they inherited their mother's passion for that beautiful Atlantic county of her birth is self-evident. Vanessa Whyte and her children, Sara (13) and James (14), on the big screen at Croke Park ahead of All-Ireland football final The picture is a sunburst of joy, a chorus of togetherness. It is the music of a family song. An idyllic scene that summons the words of the writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "the time when they loved each other best, without hurry or excess." A snapshot that teems with life, yet, this morning, unimaginably, none of the photograph's trio of carefree figures breathe. A hailstorm of death rained down on Maguiresbridge, hard by Enniskillen, on Thursday. The narrow street of our understanding struggles to simultaneously accommodate these two truths - the vitality bursting from the match day freezeframe and the monstrous ending which leaves its three subjects with suddenly stilled hearts. At such moments, the world becomes a sentence without grammar, baffling, opaque, beyond comprehension. Earlier this week, I spoke to my friend Mick Galwey, the beloved former Munster and Ireland rugby player. A Kerryman imbued with the dust of the land that formed him (and a teenage All-Ireland winner under Mick O'Dwyer in 1986), our conversation centred around tomorrow's Croke Park showpiece, the mesmeric David Clifford front and centre of our chat. Hearses carrying the three coffins. (Image: Justin Kernoghan) Mick, a man of emotional depth, speaks with powerful empathy about the sudden death of his friend and teammate Anthony Foley. "Axel" was just 42 and coaching Munster when, without warning, his heart ran out of juice in the autumn of 2016. Galwey had been best man at Foley's wedding. Seven years between them, but they were tight. Like an elder and younger brother. Just a week before his death, Foley had driven straight from a match to Mick's 50th birthday party. "Not a bother on him. In mighty form. A week later he was dead. It took me to a very dark place. You are wondering 'what is this about?' "It was devastating and terrifying to realise you can be laughing and joking and seemingly in full health one day and then, bang, it is all over. Christ." Though the circumstances are very different, the surge of emotion that floored a warrior giant as he accompanied his friend's body home, the cortege driving past their old Thomond Park stomping ground to find the streets lined by thousands, the footpaths wet with tears, will, I suspect, resonate with those closest to Vanessa. The three are to be buried in Ennis, Co. Clare, on Saturday. (Image: Jonathan Porter/PressEye) A huddle of broken family and friends, poor souls who must be adrift in the heaviest fog of grief and bewilderment. Galwey's memories, though stark, poetically express the human impulse to draw strength from the deepest bonds: "You are broken hearted, I mean broken hearted, but you want to grab the guy next to you and say, I don't know, say, 'I love you.'" Sport - notably, hurling - is an essential thread in the fabric of Barefield, a means for a small place to maintain its identity, even as the tentacles of the nearby big town, Ennis, sink deeper and deeper into its heartland. Jamesie O'Connor, the 1997 Hurler of the Year, a totemic figure on Ger Loughnane's class of 1995, the one that ended Clare's 81 year wait for an All-Ireland, hurled for the local club, St Joseph's Doora-Barefield. His brother Christy, the long-time St Joseph's goalkeeper and a decorated sports writer, penned an evocative, award-winning tome about a year in the life of the village centrepiece, a communion of people that was such a part of Veronica's life. Titled "The Club", the book is set against the backdrop of two tragedies in the parish and reveals the central role - supportive, cathartic, practical, distracting, vital - the local GAA branch plays at times of stygian struggle. Vanessa's father, Joe, played on St. Joseph's first ever county hurling winning team in 1954. Her brothers, Steve and Ivor, hurled alongside Jamesie and Christy. It is a familiar tale. Among the more affecting moments of big match days at Croke Park are when tributes are paid to a recently deceased stalwart, their picture flashing up on the big screen as the PA announcer, Gerry Grogan, gives a potted history of their life of service. What gets me right in the gut is when, spontaneously, a burst of applause, gentle at first, then rising in volume yet always respectful, accompanies the brief eulogy. Most people don't personally know the deceased, but they are aware of somebody just like them in their own community. A father, a daughter, a neighbour, who, though their volunteerism or their sporting deeds, improved the lives of others. In that cameo, when applause disturbs the silence, goodness lives. As it indisputably will in Clare and Fermanagh in the days ahead, a sustaining counterpoint to the unfolding horror and disorientation that makes it hard to breathe. No mother will look at the pictures of Vanessa with James and Sara without seeing their own children and feeling the strongest protective surge of something visceral and primal wash over them. Something born in the womb. Tragedies like these are a crossword puzzle in an alien tongue. How can anybody begin to look for answers when they cannot even comprehend the clues. A year ago, on a joyous day, perhaps Vanessa and her children sang along as Tony Kelly inspired All-Ireland glory was accompanied by a deafening Croke Park chorus. "Oh my lovely rose of Clare/you're the sweetest girl I know/the queen of all the roses/and the pretty flowers that grow/you are the sunshine of my life/so beautiful and fair/and I will always love you/my lovely rose of Clare. Those words means infinitely more this morning. Barbarously difficult weeks and months stretch before those who share a bloodline with Vanessa, James and Sara. They will know the profound truth in Mick Galwey's description of broken hearts, in the elemental need to hold somebody close and tell them, with tears filling their eyes and unbearable hurt stabbing at their soul, they are loved.
Irish Times
26 minutes ago
- Irish Times
Unbroken: Secrets, Lies and Enduring Love - a couple's riveting account through the UK justice system
Unbroken: Secrets, Lies and Enduring Love Author : Mary Attenborough & Michael Gallagher ISBN-13 : 9781785375606 Publisher : Merrion Press Guideline Price : €18.99 The press release says the lives of Mary Attenborough and Michael Gallagher were 'upended' in 1996, but this is an understatement of epic proportions. At about 4am on October 28th, there was a 'deafening thump', the sound of 'steel banging on steel' and a roar of 'armed police' as their London flat was raided. Mary struggled to hide her nakedness and prayed they wouldn't shoot. Michael is hauled away, handcuffed under a shroud and read his rights under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. This riveting account of the fallout from the night is written by the couple themselves and the narrative alternates between their two voices, so we see the raid through Michael's eyes and then Mary's. She asks to see a warrant and is warned to keep her head down before being told the police are 'investigating IRA activity relating to your boyfriend'. Michael's account seems slightly calmer than Mary's at this point. READ MORE Mary is questioned about money and whether Michael is upset that she, a mathematician and software engineer, is the main breadwinner. The fact they've just scraped together enough to buy a cottage in Ireland adds to the suspicion. She is shown the main evidence against her partner, a picture showing him with the keys outside a warehouse where traces of the constituents of Semtex have been discovered. It is later revealed the flat had been bugged and mentions of the IRA had been recorded. There is also an incident where he avoided surveillance in a seemingly accomplished manner. He is accused of taking part in 'mortar attacks on Heathrow Airport in March 1994'. [ Local history: Six books that lift the lid on times past Opens in new window ] The book follows Michael's path through the British justice system, while Mary on the outside works to prove his innocence. Michael eventually gets bail of £250,000 (€288,559), guaranteed by friends and relatives, but this is revoked when a witness appears to change their statement. At trial, all the evidence against Michael – the warehouse key, the fibres within, the flat recordings, and even his alleged training – is convincingly countered, before the verdict is delivered. A revelation that was hard to see coming unless you had some previous familiarity with the case turns the whole chain of events on its head and puts their relationship to the test but you'll already be convinced that the bond between these two people can survive anything.
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
Author Joseph Birchall: ‘Crime fiction can bring us something we don't often see in reality - justice'
Tell me about your debut novel In Plain Sight . It's a crime thriller based in Dublin with a couple of twists along the way. Darcy Doyle is a rookie in the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and she's paired up with the once brilliant and now weather-beaten Mick Kelly. There's a serial killer on the Dublin streets, but meanwhile, as they try to catch the killer, Darcy's own secretive past is catching up with her. At the book's core are two very different characters - the keen but green Darcy Doyle and the somewhat jaded and cynical Mick Kelly. Why do you think they work as a duo? They don't realise it at first, but they both need each other. Darcy has experienced childhood trauma, but she can't show any vulnerability in her work as a detective. This is detrimental to her personal relationships. Her job is her prop. Mick's crutch is the drink. In the 1990s you came close to having a feature film made with David Anspaugh, who directed Gene Hackman in Hoosiers. Tell us a little about the story and how the experience ultimately stalled your writing? My wife found my 20-year-old screenplay in a box in the attic (I know that sounds made up!). It was a coming-of-age film called Stuck on Orange about four lads in Dublin who risk everything to improve their lives. I suppose, looking back, being so close to such big success when I lived in California, which ultimately got shelved, turned me away from writing for quite some time. Thankfully, after finding the script, my wife encouraged me back to putting pen to paper once again. To fail, fail again and fail better. If your book were to be adapted for film, who would play Darcy and Mick? Dream casting would be Saoirse Ronan and Colin Farrell - minus the penguin suit. READ MORE You spent years working on a kibbutz. Have you considered writing about that experience? What do you make of Israel/Palestine today? My heart is broken for the people of the region, particularly the children of Gaza who are experiencing generational trauma. An Israeli friend's brother is still being held hostage today. It makes me realise how lucky we are to have had peace on our island for the last three decades. If anything, that still gives me hope. Your family has been living in Tallaght in Dublin for more than 100 years, and the city and its more marginalised are central to the novel. Did you draw on your own experience in writing the book? I had a very fortunate upbringing in Tallaght with two hardworking parents and a loving and supportive family and community, so fortunately, I haven't had any of the kinds of experiences that befalls Darcy. Reading books by investigative journalists such as Paul Williams, Nicola Tallant, Paul Reynolds and Pat Marry helped me gain vital procedural knowledge of the crime world. Irish crime titles seem to be enjoying phenomenal popularity. Why do you think that is? What drew you to the genre? We see so much inequality and transgression in everyday life that crime fiction, and indeed other genres, can bring us something we don't often see in reality - justice. The crime is solved, redemption is meted out and the killer is rightly punished. You left Ireland in the 1990s and lived in France, Israel and California before returning home. How has Ireland changed? We're a more confident people than we once were, more self-aware, and we take pride in who we are, but I think we've managed to retain our unique blend of social righteousness and having the craic. You are the co-founder and director of . Is there a link between entrepreneurship and creativity? You most definitely need to be creative when building a business and not be averse to taking risks. There's more cognitive liberty when writing, though, but the financial rewards are not as good! Well, not yet - maybe if the movie comes off! Which projects are you working on? Reported Missing, book two of the Darcy Doyle series is with the editor and is due to appear in 2026, and book three is about to go off to Poolbeg Press for their initial… let's call it 'appraisal'. Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage? I once went to London in my early 20s to visit 221b Baker Street, fictional home of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. I still have the photo! What is the best writing advice you have heard? Read Stephen King 's book – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft . Who do you admire the most? My wife. (I know, I know!) You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish? That all children become the number one priority for every government – their education and their wellbeing. Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend? Colm Tóibín – Long Island (if you've already read Brooklyn ) Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning The Rich Roll Podcast The most remarkable place you have visited? Jerusalem. Your most treasured possession? My Dad's radio. What is the most beautiful book that you own? A first edition of The Borstal Boy. The best and worst things about where you live? The best things are the location, the community, nearby family, and the view of the Dublin Mountains. The worst is like everywhere in Dublin: traffic. What is your favourite quotation? Motivation follows action. Always. Who is your favourite fictional character? Too many, but Lisbeth Salander popped into my head first. A book to make me laugh? Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. A book that might move me to tears? The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
