Life sentence for man who bragged about punching assault victim 'like Conor McGregor'

Following the delivery of the victim impact statement, defence counsel Seoirse Fennessy BL, for Boland, said his client had asked him to convey his apologies to the Gallagher family and maintained he did not intend to kill or cause serious harm to Cian. He said Boland acknowledged the pain he has caused to the family. 

The hearing was told that Mr Gallagher was a part of a team that was working on a community project in Tallow on November 1 2022. Detective Garda Toft said Mr Gallagher was making his way home after midnight in the early hours of November 2 when he was assaulted by Boland and suffered catastrophic injuries from a punch and a subsequent fall.

Mr Gallagher received medical assistance at the scene and passed away some days later. 

The defendant's lawyer Brendan Grehan SC alongside Mr Fennessy had argued Boland was guilty of unlawful killing, not murder, because there was no evidence of his intent to kill or cause serious injury to Mr Gallagher.

The pathology evidence in the trial showed that Mr Gallagher died from injuries sustained when he fell and banged his head on the ground after Boland punched him.

However, prosecution counsel Bernard Condon SC told the jury that the victim did not "spontaneously fall". He was pursued by Boland, counsel said, who had earlier in the night been drunkenly threatening to "beat the sh*t out" of a patron at a bar, and "smash his face in".

Mr Condon said CCTV showed Boland standing at the door of the pub, waiting for someone to come along, when he saw Mr Gallagher leaving, unsteady on his feet and possibly getting sick.

Boland "zeroed in" on Mr Gallagher like he was "prey", Mr Condon said. Counsel described Boland pursuing his victim down the street before delivering "a haymaker, a very big punch" that put Mr Gallagher down, "and God love him, he didn't get up."

Following the assault, Boland bragged to three young men who arrived on the scene that he had hit Mr Gallagher "like Conor McGregor in the UFC".

Boland later lied to gardai saying that Mr Gallagher, who was a decade younger than the defendant and of slim build, swung at him first, but Mr Condon said the CCTV evidence proved this was not true. “This wasn't a fight, it wasn't an exchange, it was a pursuit down the street of a vulnerable young man,” Mr Condon said.

Mr Condon said there was a cowardly element to Boland's behaviour, as he did not square up to "a fit young man" in the pub but instead went after "the walking wounded".

He suggested that Boland only stopped the assault when he had knocked out his victim and said the punch was part of a process in which the accused wanted to cause serious injury.

Knocked out

The trial heard that Mr Gallagher had been drinking from around 7pm in Tallow, while Mr Boland had been drinking in Lismore from 7pm until about 10pm that evening. Boland got a bus from Lismore to Tallow at about midnight.

In his closing speech for the defence, Brendan Grehan SC said there was no evidence of intent to kill or cause serious harm. He disagreed with the description of the punch as a "haymaker" saying: "What happened is that as a result of that punch, he [Mr Gallagher] collapsed and banged his head off the ground and suffered a very bad brain injury from which he never recovered."

Mr Grehan said that the accused “clearly wasn’t a loveable drunk, he’s the kind of fella you’d edge away from”, but he did not attempt to engage in any violent behaviour earlier in the evening. He said that in pleading guilty to manslaughter, Boland accepted his responsibility.  

In her charge to the jury, Ms Justice Eileen Creedon said that every unlawful killing is manslaughter, but it shall not be murder unless the accused intends to kill or cause serious harm. She told the jury that if they decided that the accused did not intend to kill, they still must consider whether he intended to cause serious injury.

If they concluded that he killed Mr Gallagher and intended to do so, then the verdict would be guilty of murder.