Bonus - Satanic Panic in Palmerstown
Mens Rea: A true crime podcast
GoLoud
4.7 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 7 July 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode was originally published as a Patreon exclusive on 2 December 2018
In this episode we take a look at the little-known so-called "satanic" murder of John Horgan (7) in Palmerstown, Dublin in 1973. John and his family lived in a quiet neighbourhood of 9 houses backing on to a field. It was there that his 16 year old neighbour, Lorcan Bale, took him and struck him in the back of the head, killing him. Lorcan then brought John's body to the attic of his house - next door to the Horgan's - and trussed him up in the shape of a cross and in front of a home-made altar.
No real explanation for the murder would ever emerge.
PLEASE NOTE - For some reason - possibly autocorrect - I mention the "Skylark Hotel" in Dublin. No such hotel exists. What I meant to say was the Skylon Hotel. I was half right? Sorry guys! My bad.
Theme Song:
Quinn's Song: First Dance by Kevin McLeod
Sources:
“The Devil is in the Detail”, in Broadsheet.ie https://www.broadsheet.ie/2016/page/382/ 22 June 2016
“Public servant and pillar of the church. guilty of the nation’s most gruesome ever ritual murder” from The Mail on Sunday https://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/public-servant-and-pillar-of-the-church-guilty-of-the-nations-most-gruesome-ever-ritual-murder/ 14 August 2011
David Malone, The Boy in the Attic (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2011) Purchase here
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You are listening to the Mens Rea podcast, and this is the story of the death of John Horgan. |
| 0:07.0 | The The |
| 0:23.6 | Oh, |
| 0:24.6 | Oh, |
| 0:25.6 | and |
| 0:26.6 | Oh |
| 0:27.6 | and |
| 0:28.6 | Oh |
| 0:29.6 | Oh and Palmerstown is a little hamlet, which today sits on the outskirts of Dublin City. |
| 0:46.6 | But in the 1970s, it was effectively the countryside, a small village on the main road from |
| 0:52.9 | Dublin to Galway. There were open fields and even a stud farm, |
| 0:58.0 | but at that time it was also growing. Hollyville was a small development of nine or so homes, |
| 1:05.5 | mainly semi-detached. They were reasonably large and were perfect for professional middle-class families. |
| 1:13.9 | Terrence and Anne Horgan got married in Hackettstown, County Carlo in 1964. |
| 1:19.6 | Terry was a company director and accountant. |
| 1:22.7 | They moved to number six, Hollyville in Palmerstown, and began their life together. |
| 1:29.5 | They were a typical couple, middle-class, conservative, religious. The next year, their only child John was born. |
| 1:36.8 | He was a quiet, clever little boy with blue eyes and blonde hair. Their neighbors were a much |
| 1:43.4 | larger family, the Bales. Mr. and Mrs. Bale lived in the |
| 1:47.8 | house with their five children and Mrs. Bail's parents, the Breslands. Kenneth and Catherine were |
| 1:53.9 | both conservative Catholics as well, much like the rest of Ireland at the time. Kenneth worked for |
| 1:59.9 | the ordnance survey specialising in Irish |
... |
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