Postman Barry Daly suffered such a “forceful blow or blows” that his jaw was broken into fragments and the subsequent inhaling of a large amount blood to the lungs rendered him unable to breathe, a pathologist has told a murder trial. Alex Deady (21) from Glenview, Convent Road, Doneraile, Cork and two young men aged 16 and 17, have pleaded not guilty to the murder of Daly (44) in Doneraile, Cork on October 12th, 2025. Deady and the older teenager have pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of the father of five. Today at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork, Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster, who conducted the postmortem, told the jury she had been informed that Daly was found with head injuries and subsequently died outside the home of his partner in the early hours. Bolster, who attended the scene at Rockview Terrace in Doneraile on October 12th, said there was a pool of blood under Daly’s head. Bolster said the broken head of a golf club was also at the scene. There was no evidence of offensive or defensive injuries. She said the lungs of the deceased were four times the normal weight as the injuries had caused an “awful lot of blood to go down” to the primary organs of the respiratory system. She stated that the “most serious trauma” was to the right side of the jaw causing multiple fragmentary fractures. There was also a fracture of the palate bone. The pathologist said there was evidence of “very severe forceful blow or blows”. The jaw was dislocated from where it attaches to the skull on the left side. Bolster said Daly was unable get air into his lungs. Bolster said the cause of death was cardio-respiratory arrest due to severe facial and head trauma complicated by aspiration of blood. The presence of alcohol and cocaine in the system was also a “contributory factor”. A teenager had told the trial that he had seen the three accused coming from the direction of Daly’s home in the early hours of October 12th. The witness, who cannot be named because he is a juvenile, said he heard yelling and somebody saying: “Barry thought he was smart hitting a girl. He is laid out now.”The trial has heard evidence that Daly struck a young woman outside Eily’s Bar in Doneraile just hours before he was found injured in the driveway of his home. Some witnesses said the punch was deliberate while others believed it was accidental. The trial continues.