Brendan Mulroy reflects on Dáil ambitions and the search for answers in Joe Deacy campaign

By Dr. Richard Martin

I MET Brendan Mulroy for a chat at the foot of the Octagon on a sunny Sunday morning.

I’d never met him before. I wanted to meet him. The annual Justice for Joe Deacy memorial walk is taking place this Sunday, August 10, and he is an active supporter of the campaign.

In doing so he has been on the receiving end of intimidation. I wanted to hear his story. We hit it off straight away.

Let’s not waste time with a lengthy preamble. Let’s hear what he has to say.

RM: Why politics?

BM: I love politics. I came from a house full of politics.

RM: Were you from a Fianna Fáil background?

BM: I'd be from a Fianna Fáil background, yeah, very, very strong.

RM: Were you from Kilmeena?

BM: I'd be a Westport man. My father would be from Kilmeena, my mother from Achill Island. Both would’ve come from very staunch Fianna Fáil Republican backgrounds.

RM: Westport, let's face it, since 1994 it has been dominated politically by Fine Gael.

BM: A hundred per cent, it has. And look, at the end of the day, and I suppose it's very important to say this, and I appreciate that I'm a Fianna Fáil councillor and I have been for all my life, but the one thing I would be very, very quick to point out, we've been very, very lucky to be represented by Michael Ring for so long. He was extraordinary.

He's been absolutely brilliant, as a person. His family are fantastic people. But Michael is just one of these guys, he's a unique man.

RM: I think it's fair to say in the history of the state, he's probably the greatest ever rural TD.

BM: I think that would be fair. He'd have to be up there anyway.

Yeah, and I knew him growing up, he lived beside me for years. I mean, I'd have seen him as a bread man, I'd have seen him going through his auctioneer business. And in all the years, even as a government minister, all I had to do was pick up the phone and ask him for advice.

The advice was always there. And if he'd come back and give you a message, look it, we'd have the odd old argument, but I mean, that's just politics. Great personal friends, and a great man for Westport, west Mayo and Mayo.

RM: Going back to the last general election, it was very disappointing again for Fianna Fáil in west Mayo.

Lisa Chambers was the second candidate. She polled poorly. She was never in contention.

This county is historically anti-treaty. If you go back, eight of the 13 TDs at the time of the treaty were anti-treaty.

What's gone wrong with Fianna Fáil? I guess you can say Castlebar, really. What needs to change going forward?

BM: Well, look, Lisa served as a TD and a senator and she had huge ability. She's a good friend of mine, too.

RM: But what went wrong in Castlebar?

BM: I suppose you'd have to ask the Castlebar Cumann that. I think, myself, there's probably been a disconnect with people there.

It's one thing you cannot overlook when it comes to representation.

I work hard 24-7 and do my best. But I think there might have been a disconnect in relation to Fianna Fáil and the way we've done our business in relation to the election. The Castlebar people can talk for themselves.

But it was disappointing. The election result was disappointing. Considering that Michael Ring had retired.

And here's the one, Richard. If you look back when Lisa first got elected in 2016, Enda Kenny was running with her. And yet, when he retired, she didn't get elected.

So there was a total disconnect. And the people of Castlebar, I mean, fair enough, they voted the way they voted.

RM: So you feel Castlebar was the issue?

BM: Well, she's a Castlebar-based candidate.

RM: But there is a history of division, I think, in Fianna Fáil and Castlebar. Would you agree with me on that?

BM: Well, that's something. Look, I mean, I do well to keep my own business.

I do well to keep Fianna Fáil and Westport up and running. And we've done that.

RM: Who's the future, then, for Fianna Fáil?

BM: That's a very good question. It depends who puts their head up.

From where I'm sitting at this moment in time, the next general election is something that I would seriously be looking at.

RM: Yourself?

BM: Absolutely. Why wouldn't I? I sat here since 1999 and watched people come and go. I'll have served 30 years in office at the end of this term.

RM: So you have ambitions of running for the next general election?

BM: Absolutely. I don't see why not. I have the experience now.

RM: Very interesting, I was not expecting that.

BM: There you go, Richard.

RM: That would really put the cat amongst the pigeons if you get the nomination.

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At this juncture we moved on to the topic of Joe Deacy. The mood dropped.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the story, Joe Deacy was a young 21-year-old man who was found unconscious on August 12, 2017, in a townland near Bohola. He died the following day in Beaumont Hospital in Dublin. The post-mortem found that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the skull.

Gardaí then opened a murder investigation and now, eight years later, his tragic death is still unexplained. In the aftermath of his death, his family and friends initiated a campaign to look for answers, discover the truth and keep the memory of their son, brother and friend alive.

RM: I was really interested in meeting you because there are 30 county councillors in this county. There's one senator and there's five TDs.

And you are the only elected representative that's involved in the Justice for Joe Deacy campaign. And you're from Westport. You're not from the immediate area of Bohola.

I'm just curious why you got involved in that.

BM: First of all, Richard, the reason I got involved is simple. All the councillors were present when the Deacy family came in to basically protest against the signage being taken down for the Justice for Joe campaign. It wasn't just the signage. A memorial was taken away. That was wrong.

RM: So the memorial was taken off the side of the road. That was at the corner where the Justice for Joe banner is now on the N5.

BM: The reason that Mayo County Council gave for taking it down was because they had received numerous complaints that it was affecting visibility for road users and the whole lot.

And, basically, I'm still not sure who complained or why they complained. So that's how I became curious for starters. It was only when I started asking the question about the roadside memorial that I actually got actively involved in this campaign. I recently had a long conversation with the Minister for Justice, Jim O'Callaghan, about the case.

So, Jim Callaghan is, at this moment in time, talking to the Garda Commissioner and the gardaí to see where we're going. I've asked for him to set up an independent inquiry.

When I saw what was happening with the roadside memorial, it triggered my sense of justice. What happened was wrong,

I went over to England around 2019 to meet Joe's father and uncle with a number of others. We went through the situation with them. We needed to find out the whole background to the case. And we did that.

I could see straight away that there was a massive injustice being done to the Deacy family. I needed to talk to the family to find out how they felt about the memorial going.

And that's when I really, really got involved.

But a number of attempts have been made over the years to stop me from being involved in the case. There was interference, let me put it that way.

RM: When you say interfered with, do you mean someone approached you verbally?

BM: Yes, people came up and told me that I shouldn't be involved in the case.

RM: Did you feel intimidated?

BM: Initially I did, yeah. Initially I did because it's an ongoing investigation. And I couldn't for the life of me understand why would anyone would stop me looking for justice for the Deacy family.

Because that's all we're looking for.

RM: Who were those people trying to intimidate you?

BM: They were from different areas. They’re only basically the carrier pigeons. They're only carrying the message from an individual to me.

RM: Do you think?

BM: I do, absolutely. Initially I'd say I was a bit taken back. The first time I was at the Newport 300 launch. I got a phone call from a friend of mine to tell me that this person had approached them and basically to tell me to stay away from the case.

I felt intimidated that day.

RM: In what sense?

BM: Well, I have a family and I have a wife, and it's an ongoing murder investigation. I couldn't understand why anyone would want to be intimidating me anyway. You know, basically, don't be supporting the Deacy campaign.

RM: Do you regret getting involved in this?

BM: Not a bit, not a bit. I have a son myself going on 26 years of age. And I'd wish, I'd wish if something had happened to him that someone would have the courage to stand up.

I've met a lot of good people through the campaign. And when you see the Deacy family's hurt and the fact there are no answers for them, I absolutely do not regret getting involved.

What I do regret is that there's still no answers eight years on. And the Deacy family still have to close their eyes at night and go to bed. There's still no answers for them.

The truth is there somewhere. An Garda Síochána need to step up to the mark here now. They really need to step up to the mark.

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Public service is about representing the people, all of the people, to the best of one’s ability. His courage in helping the Deacy family is inspiring and courageous.

I tell you one thing: He wouldn’t make a bad TD either.