Bonus - The Mysterious Death of Patrick Nugent

Mens Rea: A true crime podcast

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True Crime, Society & Culture

4.7 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

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Summary

This episode was originally published as a Patreon exclusive on 6 Oct 2019

In the early hours of the 11th February, 1984, Patrick Nugent died in a car park in front of Bunratty Castle, Co Clare. There had been a party, and Patrick was working in the castle that night.

A number of guests were present for the events leading up to Patrick's death, but, none of their stories were consistent with one another. Two guests - off duty gardai - would not speak to the officers who responded to the scene.

At a post-mortem it was established that Patrick had been run over by a car, but not before falling to the ground.

What happened to Patrick Nugent?

Music:

Kevin McLeod, Quinns Song : The Dance Begins. (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Sources:

“What Happened in Bunratty?” Episode 29 Scannal (RTE, 26/09/2016) Available here: https://www.rte.ie/player/series/the-scannal-collection/SI0000004189?epguid=IH000338537

The History of Shannon Airport https://www.shannonproperties.ie/shannon-region/the-history-of-shannon-airport/

Bunratty Castle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunratty_Castle
www.bunrattycastle.ie

Economic History of the Republic of Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland#1980_to_early_1990s

Derek Dunne, “The Death of Patrick Nugent” from Magill https://magill.ie/archive/death-patrick-nugent (12 June 1985)

Simon Carswell, “Who 'clocked' Patrick Nugent? A family still searches for answers” in The Irish Times https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/who-clocked-patrick-nugent-a-family-still-searches-for-answers-1.3107557 (5 June 2017)

Dan Danaher, “Patrick Nugent's family secures state inquiry into his death in 1984” in The Irish Examiner https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/patrick-nugents-family-secures-state-inquiry-into-his-death-in-1984-373317.html (28 December 2015)

Dan Danaher, “Family fury over death inquiry delay” in The Clare Champion https://clarechampion.ie/family-fury-over-death-inquiry-delay/ (11 September 2015)

Owen Ryan, “Death in Bunratty and the long search for answers” in The Clare Champion https://clarechampion.ie/family-fury-over-death-inquiry-delay/ ( (29 July 2019)
http://www.section42inquiries.ie/en/s42i/pages/si1992017

Anne Sheridan, “Suspicious death in Bunratty ow under review 33 years on” in The Limerick Leader https://www.limerickleader.ie/news/home/253965/suspicious-death-in-bunratty-now-under-review-33-years-on.html (8 June 2017)

“Nugent case goes to UN Committee” in The Clare Champion http://clarechampion.ie/nugent-case-goes-to-un-committee/ (4 February 2016)

Ray Ryan, “'Isn't he the image of Honey Fitz” in The Irish Examiner https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/isnt-he-the-image-of-honey-fitz-234702.html (21 June 2013)

Caroline O'Doherty, “Reviews into Garda malpractice claims are pointless, say victims” in The Irish Examiner https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/reviews-into-garda-malpractice-claims-are-pointless-say-victims-378790.html (29 January 2016)

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the Mens Rea podcast, and this is the story of the mysterious death of Patrick Nugent.
0:08.3	Music The
0:23.6	The The 1980s in Ireland are generally remembered as a pretty dismal time in Irish history.
0:50.7	The country was in the grips of a terrible recession caused not only by worldwide economic
0:56.4	contraction, but also due to an overvalued currency and a number of poorly planned and
1:02.3	foolish political decisions by governments in the preceding decade. Unemployment was at an all-time
1:08.7	high and was accompanied by a period of mass emigration.
1:13.4	There were only a few exceptions to this rule of widespread dreariness and despondency.
1:20.1	One of these was a small pocket of communities at the mouth of the River Shannon in the west of
1:25.4	Ireland in County Clare.
1:29.5	There, there was an airport.
1:36.2	Planes had been landing there to refuel from transatlantic flights since the 1930s,
1:41.7	and what had started off as a flying boat terminal was developed into a permanent runway on the north side of the river.
1:47.1	Nearly all the planes making their way to and from Europe from America stopped at Shannon Airport. In 1947, the world's first duty-free shop was
1:55.3	begun there, and hosting the people who came through Shannon Airport injected the area with much-needed
2:01.8	employment, funded primarily in the form of dollars.
2:06.8	Bonrati Castle is no more than a 20-minute drive from Shannon Airport, and after falling into
2:13.1	disrepair in the early 1800s, the 16th century Norman Stronghold was restored in 1956.
2:21.0	A hotel was built nearby in 1959, and the castle and the so-called folk park were opened to the
2:27.7	public, to act as a sort of open-air museum, recreating what Irish village life was like in the 19th century.
2:36.3	Today, you'll find everything from a little sweet shop to a one-roomed farmhouse to
2:41.6	Bunratty House, built in 1804, to house the last members of the plantation family that had
	...

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