’Abbeylara’ book launch

SHOWING SUPPORT Regina Hennelly, Manulla, pictured in the County Library, Castlebar, at the launch of her book ‘Abbeylara’ with retired judge, John Garavan (who launched the book) and staff of the library, from left: Mary Murphy, Assistant Librarian; Mary Gannon, Senior Executive Librarian; Darina Molloy, Assistant Librarian and Austin Vaughan, County Librarian. Pic: Michael Donnelly

‘Abbeylara’ book launch

Claire Egan

CASTLEBAR LIBRARY was the venue for the launch of Mayo native Regina Hennelly’s book ‘Abbeylara, The Tragic Shooting of John Carthy’.
The Manulla-born journalist reported on the lengthy Barr Tribunal, which was established to examine the facts surrounding the death of John Carthy, on April 20, 2000 at his home in Abbeylara, Co Longford following a stand-off with Gardaí. The tribunal, which sat for 208 days, hearing 169 witnesses and costing over €18 million, was covered in its entirety by Regina.
“At the time of the tribunal, I was in DCU finishing my degree. The Longford Leader wanted someone to cover the early days of the tribunal and a friend of mine asked me to go along to it. It started out initially with The Longford Leader and then I found myself covering it for other papers, along with RTÉ Radio One and Shannonside,” said Regina.
Following the conclusion of the tribunal, Regina found herself left with hundreds of notebooks documenting the tragic events. A simple desire to write, coupled with her own aspiration to recount the ‘full story’, prompted her to put pen to paper and distil the events of April 20, 2000 into a highly-compelling read.
“I found that the national media had not given it the attention it needed and that, although everyone had an opinion on it, the full story was still not known. In light of the fact that I had covered the full tribunal, I wanted to tell the story and tell it in a simple and objective manner,” she explained.
The launch, conducted by retired Judge John Garavan, who complimented the quality and standard of writing throughout the 298-page publication, was well-attended by members of the general public and a number of political representatives.
For now, 25-year-old Regina, whose late father, PJ Hennelly, worked for many years with the Connaught Telegraph, has no further plans to progress with her novel-writing career and is at present pursing a Masters Degree in Political Theory at University College, Dublin.
Of her recent exploits, she admits to an equal mixture of both satisfaction and relief that the book has at last reached the shelves.
“It was over two years in progress, between writing, drafting, waiting for the Barr findings and then of course the publication stages. Basically I have gone through the events piece by piece and tried to give a sense of the tension that day for both parties in an objective manner,” she concluded.