A group of retirees has been coming to the Central Criminal Court in Dublin to observe trials from the viewing galleries for about 10 years now, most recently watching former Kilkenny hurling great DJ Carey being jailed for 5½ years on fraud charges.
One of the group, Rosario Drennan Hennessy, has always been interested in crime, but it wasn’t until she retired that she began to attend courts.
“I was very busy with children and caregiving. That took up all my time,” she says.
The Cabra woman has been reading court reports in newspapers, listening to podcasts on crime and watching television reports for years but always wanted to experience the atmosphere inside the courtroom for herself.
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“I was always dying to go to the courts. My husband used to say ‘go in, go in, go in’. Out of the blue one day, I did.”
In January 2023, Drennan Hennessy sat in on the much publicised so-called Hutch Trial, at which Gerard Hutch was acquitted of the murder of Kinahan gang member David Byrne at the Regency Hotel Dublin in 2016.
Over the course of that 52-day trial, she met retired pathology technician Noel Donohoe and former watchmaker Tony Nolan.
“You’d come in early; you’d sit waiting to get in, and you’d just sit chatting. Noel and Tony were always in early. It just happened.”
When you’re looking at the person in the stand, whatever murder they have done, they don’t look like a murderer
— Noel Donohoe
That’s how Drennan Hennessy joined the informal group calling themselves The Court MPs (the Court Members of Public). They update each other on the proceedings of cases they are following and meet afterwards to discuss verdicts. The group has favourite judges, barristers and gardaí.
Among the group’s favourites is High Court Judge Tony Hunt, senior counsel Michael Bowman (who was the State’s top-earning criminal legal aid barrister in 2023) and his fellow member of the inner Bar Anne-Marie Lawlor.
One of the most challenging trials that the group watched was the Ashling Murphy case, which Donohoe says he found deeply affecting. Jozef Puska is serving a life sentence for the murder of Ms Murphy (23) while she was out walking on the Grand Canal near her home in Tullamore, Co Offaly on January 12th, 2022.
“The father and mother were there,” he says of Ms Murphy’s parents.
“I was looking at the father tearing up and absolutely crying his eyes out, and I was crying myself,” says Donohoe.
The group started more than 10 years ago, when Nolan began attending the Wayne Dundon Trial in 2014.
Dundon, along with Nathan Killeen, was found guilty of murdering businessman Roy Collins in Limerick.
Nolan says: “I was just fascinated so I said to myself ‘I’m going to come here every day and watch all the murder trials’.”
While the Court MPs observe all kinds of cases, the group has a strong preference for such trials because “it’s a side of life you’ve never seen before,” he explains.
“Trials have really captured my attention. I was always interested in the courts. I would read the papers every day but never fully understood what went on there,” Nolan says.
Nolan, who is fondly referred to by other members of the group as the “Chief Justice”, says that part of what interests him in these trials is watching the level of expertise at work.
“I was just fascinated by the barristers. They’re unbelievable [with] the education that they have. I was mesmerised.
“What really impressed me throughout was the level of skill and education of the legal teams. The sheer knowledge of the law is astonishing.”
It was not just the members of the bar that caught the former watchmaker’s attention.
“I have to say the quality of police work in cases is to be commended. You cannot fault it, from phones, texts, cell data and more. They really all do a brilliant job, and I would not have known about the massive workload that goes on behind a case had I not attended here every day.”
Being inside the courtroom, even as an observer, gives a different perspective, Nolan says. “I don’t think people understand just how close in proximity everyone is. It’s very tough for everyone.”
Although drawn in by watching the professionals in action, an unexpected boon of sitting in the Central Criminal Courts of Justice five days a week is the friendships forged.
“We just became friends over the years by meeting each other the odd time and then we met each other regularly for a long time,” says Nolan.
A number of new members joining in recent months has brought the group’s total to 19, and the longest standing member, Nolan, says: “The courts are a great place for retired people to come to. It’s fascinating and costs nothing”.
“It’s like a job to me. People will ask me, neighbours and such: ‘Are you off to work Tony?’”
While Nolan believes that the group has inspired more members of the public to sit in the gallery to watch cases, Drennan Hennessy would like to dissuade people. “I don’t be encouraging them because the seats are few and far between,” she says.
Donohoe had long wanted to attend trials but was unaware of how easy it was to come and go to court cases. “I said I would take a chance because I am retired,” he says.
Donohoe went in to ask security if he could attend the 2019 Mr Moonlight trial, where Patrick Quirke was convicted of murdering DJ Bobby Ryan.
“I thought you had to stay in there all day for the whole trial but you can come and go as you please,” he says.
His own interest in court cases stems from an interest in human psychology. “I’d be interested in the human profile,” he says.
Recalling the 2019 appearance of Dessie O’Hare at the Criminal Courts of Justice (at which the so-called Border Fox received a 10-year sentence with three suspended for the violent attempted eviction of a man and his family from their home in Co Dublin in 2015. He was released last year), Donohoe says: “When I saw him up on the stand getting sentenced – he was like an altar boy”.
“He was 60-odd at the time, but he looked like a little young fella going for his Confirmation.”
A retired pathology technician at Tallaght Hospital, Donohoe worked with the late Dr John Harbison, the State’s first forensic state pathologist.
[ When my friends teased me about having a ‘ginge’ baby, I snapped backOpens in new window ]
“When he would come in I would go to the boot of his car and take out his medical books for him. While he was in there one day I saw this big textbook that you would get in Trinity College. It was called Forensic Human Profiling.”
“I was looking at a few pages and the next minute, there was a tap on the shoulder, and here’s Harbison with the beard and the glasses. I said: ‘Sorry Professor’.” But to Donohoe’s surprise, Harbison offered to lend him the book.
This, in part, encouraged Donohoe’s interest in criminal cases.
Attending trials and discussing them with others is a stimulating social outlet, Nolan notes, and the group has gathered for social occasions outside of the Central Criminal Court.
“We’ve made friends, you know.”
The Court MPs did not know each other before they started attending trials together, and have in retirement made friends from “all different backgrounds and walks of life”, says Nolan says.
The Court MPs are looking forward to their annual Christmas lunch, which will take place this year at the Ashling Hotel, Dublin.
“It’s like our office party,” he quips.
The group was also invited by the King’s Inns to celebrate the beginning of the 2025-2026 legal year, a social event normally attended exclusively by members of the legal profession.
Donohoe believes that the courts “are a great way to pass the time”, while Drennan Hennessy says it “keeps your brain active”.
She adds: “We will all have our verdicts and our opinions on the cases that we watch.”
