Patrick Quirke is on suicide watch this weekend, which is protocol for new inmates given a life sentence. But I don’t believe such a narcissist would ever kill himself.
He reminds me in some ways of the ruthless Bull McCabe in John B Keane’s play The Field, which was based on a true story that also captivated the Irish public in 1959.
Quirke is much more of a toothless character than the hard chaw McCabe.
But it is a valid comparison because they both stooped to cold-blooded murder to hold on to a plot of land. The eerie similarities don’t end there either.
The two men lost a child in tragic circumstances and were unhappy in their marriages.
It was disgusting how Quirke used his son’s death as an excuse to explain why he Googled the timeframe for a body to decompose.
It was obvious he wanted to know how long it would take before Bobby Ryan’s remains turned into a skeleton.
When Bull McCabe faced losing the land he had rented for donkeys, he bemoaned: “It’s my field. It’s my child. I nursed it. I dug the rocks out of it with my bare hands and I made a living thing of it.”
Bobby Ryan's daughter says she is haunted by the image of her dad's body lying in concrete pit
Quirke no doubt felt the same about the 60 acres he rented from Mary Lowry.
It looks like he brainwashed the vulnerable widow, who he sponged off and tried to take advantage of for what was described as his “sexual proclivities”.
Quirke was so money-mad he pulled a fast one by paying her only about €12,000-a-year in rent on the land and then secretly got most of it back through an EU grant.
And he milked her for money at every opportunity, including a €20,000 loan he never repaid.
She was his own private cash cow and he didn’t want anybody else on the scene. It was despicable behaviour considering Quirke had married Mary’s sister-in-law Imelda and they were technically family.
And it’s all the more disgusting when you think how Imelda’s dead husband Martin was the best man at Quirke’s wedding.
I reckon only a mentally unstable person would’ve carried out all the spiteful things he subsequently did to Mary after she dumped him.
It no doubt ran through Quirke’s mind when Mr Ryan started dating Mary that he would eventually talk sense into her about her financial dealings with him.
Quirke obviously murdered the poor unfortunate man because he feared losing the land.
Larissa Nolan comment: 'Where is the support for vulnerable Mary Lowry after Moonlight trial?'
But he probably also did it out of sheer jealousy and a desire to hurt Mary.
I believe she is lucky he didn’t try to kill her too.
Instead, Quirke tried to frame her for the murder, which I suspect he planned from the get-go.
Imelda must have been mortified by it all and I still can’t understand how she was able to stand by him. But I’d be flabbergasted if she was by his side during the appeal reportedly planned.
Quirke might’ve been able to manipulate “Desperate Housewives”, according to a meme using a pic of the TV show.
But he was also moronic to use his own computer to research how to commit murder.
Why did he not go to an internet cafe or watch a true crime show on Netflix?
He will go down in the history books as Ireland’s dumbest killer.
And I hope he rots in jail.
Locals reveal that killer Pat Quirke was money-mad and saw himself as a celebrity in Tipperary
