By Joe Leogue
The house at the centre of the Macroom murder investigation was the scene of anti-social behaviour in an otherwise quiet neighbourhood, according to locals.
Residents of Dan Corkery Place stooped under garda cordons as they went about their daily business, passing a search team that climbed roofs, scoured gutters, and foraged through garden bushes in a bid to locate the weapon used to kill 44-year-old Timmy Foley.
Mr Foley had only recently been released from prison following a knife incident.
He had pleaded guilty to assaulting a student, assault causing harm to another man, producing a knife and being drunk and a danger in September, 2017.
A student on the bus home to Kerry had been caught by the throat by Timmy Foley who mocked him as a homosexual. Another passenger came to the student’s assistance. That man was later struck on the hand with a knife.
As a result of the incident Timmy Foley was given a two-year jail term with the last year suspended at Cork Circuit Criminal Court in February of this year.
Yesterday, gardaí made door-to-door enquiries along the L-shaped cul-de-sac comprised of a mix of two dozen or so terraced bungalows and two-story semi-detached houses.
Dan Corkery Place is close to Macroom’s largest supermarket and cars emerging from the Dunnes Stores car park slowed as they passed the media presence at the entrance to the taped-off estate.
At the far corner from the entrance to the estate stand the gates to Macroom AFC’s training ground, where children’s training was due to take place last night.
Most of the locals who crossed the cordon to go to town declined to speak to the assembled press, but those who did spoke of late night drinking and loud arguments.
One woman said she believed there had been ‘several’ complaints to the authorities about the anti-social behaviour at the house. Unlike many of her neighbours, she was awake when the gardaí arrived on the scene in the early hours of Monday morning.
"I don’t go to bed until all hours of the morning. I saw the ambulance, the guards, everything. I didn’t think it was as serious as that."
“I knew him to see. There was always trouble down there,” she said.
“I didn’t realise how bad it was until I saw SouthDoc, I knew then, I said ‘There’s something bad after happening’,” the woman said.
She said the house attracted people from outside the town for parties.
“There was loads of them, they used to come out on the bus from Cork. All parties.”
Another man said he slept through the night, and only learned of the murder when he got a call yesterday morning.
“The brother rang me to say he’d heard there was trouble down here, and I’d heard nothing. I looked out and then I saw the area cordoned off,” he said. “I know him to see, he wasn’t living here that long, maybe six to 12 months.
“There was commotions at nights and you’d hear things as well,” he said of complaints.
"This place is fine and quiet. All the rest are quiet, we get on great."
“I took a guess, I knew when I saw the area cordoned off, I knew straight away,” he said.
Local Fianna Fáil TD Aindrias Moynihan’s constituency office is less than a 10 minute walk from Dan Corkery Place, and he was there early yesterday morning speaking to residents.
Mr Moynihan said there was a sense of shock at the murder.
“Dan Corkery Place is a close-knit community where people have grown up over the years together. There’s a good spread of ages there and a good, strong community spirit. It’s not a place you would be associating with violence like this or anything,” he said.
“People are only coming to terms with it, after waking up this morning and realising that something terrible has happened on their doorstep.”
