The scene at Mardyke Walk, Cork, where Timmy Hourihane was assaulted in 2019.  Picture: Dan Linehan

Slain chef Timothy Hourihane once gave the shoes off his feet to a man who was homeless, standing on the street in wet socks with nowhere to sleep that night.  

Known as Timmy, he led a glamorous and comfortable middle-class life in London and the UK for some years, cooking for Elton John and Lionel Richie at private parties and living in a nice house with his wife and son. That was years before he was beaten to death in Cork City.  

He grew up near Kilcrohane, a charming coastal village on the Sheep's Head Peninsula near Bantry in West Cork. He later trained as a chef and worked for some years for the Hilton Hotel group in the UK before moving back to Ireland.  

He met a man who would become his partner and the pair lived in Cork City for some time.  But when his partner got cancer and died, Mr Hourihane’s life suddenly spun out of control.  He reportedly turned to alcohol to numb the pain, lost his home, and became homeless.

Despite repeated successful attempts to get sober, something would trigger him and he’d return to alcohol and the streets, friends said.  

But he was well-liked and popular with many in the city.  Despite his difficulties, people described Mr Hourihane as “jolly” and polite.  

One of the men accused of his murder, James Brady, who was convicted of his manslaughter this week, said that he loved him. He said that he was wise, “had a big heart”, and would always offer advice on coping with any problems.  

During the times when he was sober, Mr Hourihane would volunteer with homeless charities to help others who were still on the streets.  He knew how dangerous life out there could be.  

His close friend and fellow chef, French national Vincent Morgain, who was also homeless, was killed when he was punched one night in Cork City, fell, and hit his head.

Mr Hourihane carried his coffin.  Volunteer and homeless activist Christina Chalmers remembers calling Mr Hourihane, as Mr Morgain lay on life support in the Mercy University Hospital, to share the tragic news. 

“I told him I never wanted to receive a call like this about him,” said Ms Chalmers.  “[Mr Hourihane] was a close family friend. My kids adored him, we all did.  

He was so kind and unbelievably generous. Even when he was going through his own pain he still tried to help others.  

“An apartment was found for him before his death but something happened to him the day he was supposed to collect the keys and he never picked them up. He was hours away from having his own home and a regular life but fell back into homelessness which eventually killed him.

“Thankfully, we have got some vindication for Timmy. Someone has become accountable for his death.” 

Mr Hourihane had been staying in a tent off Mardyke Walk in Cork City before his brutal killing there on October 13, 2019.  A number of homeless people had set up a 'tented village' there that year.

It emerged through the trial that life at this tented village started off reasonably well. Residents looked out for each other, there was a strong community spirit and everyone shared what they had.

But a climate of fear, with volatile outbursts, threats, and violent attacks, had settled there before the killing, the Central Criminal Court heard during the recent murder trial.

There were beatings, fractious divisions between groups, and allegations that people put crumpled biscuits into other’s tents to attract rats.

Two friends of Mr Hourihane's, Kellie Lynch and Ivana Bozic, were so afraid that they tried to leave the camp with Mr Hourihane in the hours before his death. But because they couldn’t carry everything, they decided to stay until they had some money to make the move more possible.

Mr Hourihane had only returned to the camp a few short days before his death, having left approximately two weeks earlier.

They had lent him a tent the night before the killing because he had nowhere to sleep. That night, there had been an altercation in the camp and the women had called gardaí.

The next day, they were threatened, with one person allegedly saying ‘burn baby burn’ to the young women.

Ms Lynch said in court that she and her partner tried to keep their distance from everyone else at the homeless camp off Mardyke Walk apart from Mr Hourihane, whom they liked and felt safe with.  

Another witness, Martin Harrington, who was also homeless at the time and living there, said that life at the camp was frightening.

He had been attacked there himself a short time before Mr Hourihane’s death, and believed he would have been killed had another man not intervened.

On the night of the killing, he said that there was “a big racket outside". “I thought it was going to turn into a gang fight or something,” said Mr Harrington.

“I was really getting really worried. The worst thing about there [the camp behind high fences off Mardyke Walk] is...you are very trapped inside there."

Another man who lived at the camp and who gave evidence at the trial, Adrian Henry, said they slept with their tents facing the entrance, always alert for intruders and approaching danger. Described in court as a 'hard man' of the camp, he said that being homeless was tough and that everyone at the camp drank heavily as a way of coping with that trauma.

'Killed for no other reason than he was gay'

Chillingly, Mr Hourihane's sexuality may have thrown another layer of danger on his life on the streets.

A key witness in the trial, Kathleen O'Brien, said that Mr Hourihane "was killed for no other reason than he was gay".

Ms O’Brien said that she threw herself over Mr Hourihane, trying to protect him from a vicious attack in which she said both Brady and another man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, repeatedly stamped on his head.

Although Dr Margot Bolster, the State pathologist, mentioned no evidence of injury to the groin in her autopsy report, Ms O'Brien said that Brady had opened Mr Hourihane’s legs and said to the other man, "Go on, kick him, he’s only a faggot".

“I could hear Timmy gurgling,” said Ms O’Brien. “I screamed and pleaded, everything, for them to stop.

I put my body over his head, they were pulling me off of him. I was getting hit…they were going crazy wild, with hits and kicks.

Ms O’Brien gave a statement to gardaí following the attack, initially saying that she knew nothing about it because she “was scared for my life after seeing what they did". But she later changed her statement, giving gardaí the same account that she gave to the Central Criminal Court in Waterford.

She said that she changed her statement months after the killing because she remembered vividly what happened to Mr Hourihane and was plagued every night by images of his face. "I swear with my hand on my heart, on the Holy Bible, that James Brady and [unnamed man] killed that man in cold blood for no other fact than that the man was gay," she said.

New hate crime legislation is currently before the Oireachtas. When it is enacted, the Hate Crime Bill would introduce tougher penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice against certain characteristics, including sexual orientation.

Some campaigners say that these legislative changes cannot come soon enough.

Following its publication in April 2021, the General Scheme of the Criminal Justice (Hate Crime) Bill 2021 was referred to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice for pre-legislative scrutiny, which took place on November 17, 2021.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee intends to publish the new Hate Crime Bill this summer.

Allegations were also made during the trial that Mr Hourihane made unwanted sexual advances on the defendant. Brady spoke of having to push Mr Hourihane off him as he repeatedly tried to touch him although he said that he did not feel threatened by it.

Another man at the camp said that Brady came to him complaining that Mr Hourihane had come into his tent and tried to lie down on top of him. This was approximately two weeks before the killing. Mr Hourihane reportedly apologised and both he and Brady left the camp then and only returned in the final days and hours before Mr Hourihane's violent death.

The subjectivity of memory and willful obfuscation of the truth made the large volume of evidence in this trial even more difficult for the jury to analyse and weigh before delivering its unanimous verdict.

Brady's three statements made to gardaí and shared with the court varied in numerous details.

He also admitted lying to gardaí in some of the statements.

Witness Adrian Henry also said that he initially lied to gardaí and gave a very different account of the assault he saw that night when he spoke to the court.

Even the "Good Samaritans'" memories of the events that night varied slightly, although they "had no skin in the game" and were purely trying to support the trial and the truth.

But Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy noted that their intervention that night, rushing to help Mr Hourihane as he lay severely beaten and dying on the ground near a burning tent, was 'the only pinpoint of light in a very dark event'.

Caitríona Twomey from Cork's Penny Dinners, a charity that helps people who are homeless and hungry, said that Mr Hourihane was a regular there and they knew him well.

She said that he was polite and appreciative of the services, always complimenting them on the food and talking about the different dishes and sauces they made.

He came in every day for dinner. And he stayed here when the weather was particularly bad. Timmy was Timmy. He met an unmerciful end which no one deserves.

“He wouldn't be a fighter, he wasn't violent like that. He would not have been able to defend himself.

“It's heartbreaking that anyone would be beaten to death, it's truly awful.

“He enjoyed his food. He'd say 'fab grub' and 'thanks so much'. He was happy. He had all those things going for him."

Mr Hourihane was 53 years old when he was fatally assaulted off Mardyke Walk in Cork City on October 13, 2019.

Brady has been acquitted of his murder but convicted of his manslaughter after an almost five-week trial.  

A second man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has also been charged with his murder. He is yet to stand trial. 

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