Tag Archives: Brendan O’Donnell

IT was the murder that shocked the nation – a mother, her child and a priest gunned down in an East Clare wood by a mentally-ill man, next week cinemas around the country will release a film exploring the life of the man behind these brutal killings. Property of the State, a film brought to the screens by Mountshannon-based producers Terence Ryan and Susan Morrall, is told from the perspective of Ann Marie O’Donnell, the sister of Brendan O’Donnell, who carried out this atrocity in Cregg Wood, Whitegate, in 1994. Ahead of the film release on October 27 in Ireland and the UK, Terence said it is a film that “needs to be seen”. He said people were “shocked that we would make the film because, to them, it was something they wanted not to see, and not be part of, but once they had been to see the film, they changed their minds completely and realised how important it …

A NEW film, which will premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh next week, delves into the shocking events that took place in East Clare in 1994, when Brendan O’Donnell brutally killed Imelda Riney, her son Liam and Fr Joseph Walsh. Based on the diary of Ann Marie O’Donnell, the sister of the disturbed killer, Property of the State tells the true story of how she has had to come to terms with having a murderer for a brother. The film, which will be shown next Wednesday at Town Hall Theatre in Galway, explores how the misdiagnosis of challenging behaviour at an early age, the lack of care of individuals with a mental illness and domestic and institutional abuse could combine and ultimately lead to tragic consequences, which were potentially avoidable. It asks, “Can you still love someone who has done a terrible thing?” Seen through the eyes of Ann Marie, the film shows how, piece by piece, she threads together the …