Long, formerly of St Michael\u2019s Close, Mahon, Cork, and Taylor, formerly of Cherry Lawn, Blackrock, Cork, pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Quilligan on a date unknown between September 1st, 2023 and January 29th, 2024. However, a jury found them both guilty of murder.<\/p>\n
Mr Quilligan\u2019s mother, Catherine O\u2019Flynn, his father Stephen Quilligan, and his partner, Colette O\u2019Driscoll, on Wednesday told the court how Mr Quilligan\u2019s death had affected them.<\/p>\n
Ms O\u2019Flynn said the family clung on to the hope that Kieran was still alive after he disappeared from his flat in Cork city on September 1st, 2023, and that it was all just a bad dream from which they would one day wake up.<\/p>\n
![\"Kieran](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/FN3VXXLNURF5TBBLOKCY2QITIY.jpg\")
Kieran Quilligan (47) <\/p>\n
\u201cI remember the months unfolding. How could I forget? Each day the weather conditions were getting worse \u2013 it felt like there were never so many storms. I\u2019d stare out the windows thinking \u2018God love him \u2013 he is out there in all this\u2019, while still clinging to the hope he was still alive,” she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were living in a world of loss, fear and hope until January 29th, 2024 when Kieran\u2019s skeletal remains were found. Our hearts were broken in a million pieces \u2013 our worst nightmare come true,\u201d added Ms O\u2019Flynn, who said that if her love could have saved her son, he would still be alive.<\/p>\n
Stephen Quilligan said they knew foul play had been involved in Kieran\u2019s disappearance, but it was not until they sat through the murder trial and heard the evidence that they realised the full horror of what had happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were shocked, angry, in disbelief that someone could do this to another person and pretend like nothing happened,\u201d he said. \u201cFor the last three weeks we have sat here listening to horror stories about my son and the two defendants didn\u2019t show one bit of remorse for what they did.\u201d<\/p>\n
He thanked An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na for not giving up when searching for Kieran and treating him \u201clike a human being\u201d. <\/p>\n
Ms O\u2019Driscoll said she adored Kieran and they had been told before his disappearance that they were to be housed together. <\/p>\n
\u201cKieran was going to get the keys to his long-awaited castle,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Det Garda Ann O\u2019Sullivan outlined the background to the murder. She said Long and Taylor killed Mr Quilligan in retaliation for an incident earlier on September 1st, 2023 when Mr Quilligan and another man had robbed Long of drugs and cash in Cork city centre.<\/p>\n
The three men were known to each other as they were users of heroin and crack cocaine. Taylor lured Mr Quilligan from his flat on Anderson\u2019s Quay to St Finbarr\u2019s Place, where he was attacked by him and Long before being bundled into the boot of a Toyota Rav 4. <\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed were able to link the vehicle to Long and tracked it driving to the Little Island area, where they dumped Mr Quilligan\u2019s body off a farmyard. Garda\u00ed tracked the vehicle returning there three days later, when the defendants collected and moved Mr Quilligan\u2019s body.<\/p>\n
Garda were able to track the vehicle\u2019s movements to Whitewell, Rostellan near Midleton. A search of the area by a cadaver dog on January 29th, 2024 led them to Mr Quilligan\u2019s skeletal remains, which had been dumped in a gravel bag in low lying forestry.<\/p>\n
Det Garda O\u2019Sullivan said Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster was unable to give a cause of death because of the long interval between Mr Quilligan\u2019s death and the postmortem. <\/p>\n
She testified that many of Mr Quilligan\u2019s fractures were \u201csuggestive of a blow with a blunt instrument like a hammer and there is no doubt at all they are consistent with a severe and significant assault\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man whose son was beaten to death before his body was dumped in a woodland has said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,65264,1877,18,13,14,8030,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-151987","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-central-criminal-court","11":"tag-cork","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-garda-siochana","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115459094230780595","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}