Do we really need to ask about the uproar which would have resulted if a man hit his sleeping wife 26 times with a plumber's hammer and knifed her 21 times, and was only found guilty of manslaughter?, asks Kevin Myers
We don't. We know that there are half a dozen State-subsidised feminist agencies which would have been shriekingly denouncing the legal system which had come to such a bizarre and grotesque conclusion.
But for poor Declan O'Neill, there is only silence. Slaughtered in his sleep in a savage and unprovoked assault by his wife, not a voice has been heard from Official Ireland to condemn the legal conclusion that his death was not murder. Indeed, if Official Ireland has its way, the name of Declan O'Neill will be soon forgotten - and who knows, maybe the sisters will start a campaign to free his killer, his poor, darling wife, Dolores O'Neill, for gallantly defending herself against a slumbering man.
However, if Declan O'Neill had knifed Dolores O'Neill 21 times in the neck, had beaten her 26 times with a plumber's hammer while she slept, and had been found guilty of mere manslaughter, the sisters would have been demanding to know why the court didn't hear certain evidence.
For the trial of Dolores O'Neill was not told of her own history of violence and abuse towards the victim. The jury was allowed to remain in complete ignorance of key evidence which might have helped convict Dolores O'Neill of murder.
That evidence was compiled by the victim, in diary notes and in conversations with his siblings. After the trial, Declan's brother, Dermot, gave details of Dolores O'Neill's many attacks on Declan.
She had hit him over the head with a bottle on at least two occasions. She had broken an ashtray on his head, and beaten him with a mobile phone-charger. One diary note in March 2002 refers to his having been treated at Tallaght Hospital for abrasions after she drove her car into him. If this is so, Tallaght Hospital would have a record of these injuries. Why were such medical records not presented to the court? However, although the jury was not given the chance to hear evidence which suggested that Dolores O'Neill was a violent and dangerous woman, she was nonetheless allowed to make terrible allegations against her dead husband, such as that he often got drunk and beat her. After the trial, his brothers said that that he was such a light drinker that he was always the nominated driver on family nights out. John Harbison, the State pathologist, testified that from the condition of the body, Declan was clearly not a heavy drinker. Moreover, since there were no defensive wound injuries on his body, he was probably asleep when he was killed.
It is almost beyond parody, but the butcher who did this to a sleeping man was of course an employee of the Equality Agency: no doubt it is even keeping her job open, possibly even planning a campaign to secure her release: Release The Knocklyon One! She only bumped a fellow off while he slept! Defend A Woman's Right To Kill Her Husband! However, our courts had already effectively vindicated that right. Last January, Norma Cotter was allowed to walk free from court after pleading guilty to a charge of shot-gunning her husband in bed. Cpl Gary Cotter was a soldier of this Republic.
Had he been shot dead on duty 12 hours earlier, he would have been a national hero. Instead, he was coldly and calculatedly butchered in bed by his wife, and was accordingly forthwith banished from public memory. His wife was convicted of manslaughter - and was instantly given her freedom.
So, this is the second time this year that our courts have concluded that for a woman to kill her helpless husband in bed is not murder. We know such clemency would never be shown to a man who so killed his wife, for there is an entire assembly of State-subsidised agencies whose sole job is to put pressure on judges and national institutions to ensure a general enforcement of the feminist agenda. One key feature of this agenda is that women - even when they hack husbands to death or blow them apart by repeated shotgun blasts in their beds - are always victims.
I have no idea why evidence which might have helped convict Dolores O'Neill of murder for the frenzied attack on her sleeping husband was not disclosed in court: I merely note the subsequent silence about it - rather similar to that which followed the brutal slaying in bed of Cpl Cotter. We can be sure, however, that there would have been tumultuous uproar if either of the victims had been a she.
I am long used to the cowardly political silence which follows any failure to protect male rights - not least of all, men's right to life. Now, I am inclined to gather from the many foam-flecked published letters that demand that Madam sack me, that readers of this newspaper are vaguely aware of what appears in this space.
Yet not a single letter-writer backed me when I wrote about the scandalous freeing of Norma Cotter, cold-blooded husband-killer: and I expect a similarly craven silence this time also.
But most emphatically, now and forever: no more "strictly private" letters of support to this column, on this or any other issue. I am sick and tired of such craven, lily-livered "support".
If you agree with me, but haven't got the courage to say so publicly, oh please, once and for all, just shut up and shag off.