Who Killed Una Lynskey?: A True Story of Murder, Vigilante Justice and the Garda ‘Heavy Gang’

by Mick Clifford

A true story of murder and vengeance, a shattered community and a miscarriage of justice that echoes down the decades

October 1971. Nineteen-year-old Una Lynskey vanishes near her home in Co. Meath. In the weeks that follow, and on flimsy grounds, gardaí identify three young local men as suspects. Within days of her body being found, one of the three is beaten to death by members of Una’s family.

The entire sequence of events is a tragedy in a quiet rural community - the wrong men jailed, no one ever facing justice - and becomes one of the most notorious failures in Irish policing and judicial history.

In Who Killed Una Lynskey?, award-winning journalist Mick Clifford has built a compelling portrait of the case from interviews with the surviving main players, as well as exclusive access to the files of a private investigator who uncovered information the gardaí missed - or ignored.

A timely, humane and compulsive read, this is a ground-breaking account of the botched investigation and its devastating consequences for not just four devastated families, but also the reputation of the gardaí.

Genres: Audiobook, True Crime, Irish Literature

351 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 22, 2024

Reviews

[Katey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, gripping and fair. Not dramatised whatsoever, I loved the factual, matter of fact and sensitive writing style.

[Rachael · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an emotional book. It details the tragic murder of Una Lynskey, followed by a horrendous miscarriage of justice that went on for years. The book was written without bias and in a factual manner; I would encourage people to read it to do justice to those men who were so horribly wronged.

[Meabhonnaise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. It reads like an extensively researched and thorough description. The author takes a very balanced approach to telling the story.

[Ophelia MJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're a true crime fan, you have to acknowledge the mass amounts of people coerced into confession, and the mass amount of people wrongfully in jail. So many cases are spent putting someone in jail, and then getting them out. Now 50 years have passed, dozens of lives ruined, and absolutely no leads. And the victims get forgotten when new victims are made by wrongful imprisonment. It's a horrible sad cycle. At work crying for Una Lynskey and Martin Kerrigan.

[Orna Richella · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well researched and carefully detailed book that brings us from the day in 1971 that Una Lynskey walked home from the bus but never arrived through the following days, the initial search, the developing police investigation, the terrible events that led to a second death and the aftermath . The narrative aims to give context to the reactions of various people involved and does not judge but gives the reader the opportunity to form their own interpretation. It is horrifying to realise how powerless the people involved were against the mechanisms of the justice system. And the saddest part is that Una, the unfortunate girl of the title, is lost and becomes insubstantial as a result. I finished the last page disturbed that the book brings us so close- almost up to today.

[Emilia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had no idea what I’m getting myself into when I started this book. I have so many thoughts I need to share with someone that I think I need to write them down.
First of all, I’m on the Garda Brian Gildea hate club - how did he get away with all the abuse he inflicted on people throughout all those years?? Not only him but the statements in the book were mostly about how he physically assaulted innocent men and GOT AWAY WITH IT!! In all that they just didn’t even care to find the murderer, they just picked a bunch of people to imprison and forget about the case. And for what? This was just infuriating, fuck those guys, honestly.

[ParisianIrish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mick Clifford’s compelling work on the tragic case of Una Lynskey is as much a meticulous historical investigation as it is a scathing indictment of the flawed policing practices of 1970s Ireland. Grounded in rigorous reporting and access to previously untapped files, the narrative reckons with how those entrusted with justice instead inflicted profound injustice.

Meticulous Rebuilding of a Case Gone Wrong

Clifford reconstructs the timeline of events with remarkable clarity: Una Lynskey disappears in October 1971; months later, her body is found in the Dublin Mountains. Instead of pursuing credible leads—even a witness-reported sighting of a distinctive Ford Zodiac driven by a well-dressed stranger—the investigative focus was narrowed prematurely to three local men. Witness statements were conveniently shifted to support the predetermined theory, and an orchestration of weak, sometimes contradictory evidence was used to build a case around flawed assumptions. Clifford reveals that the Gardaí “decided on the narrative and then went on to build the evidence around that” rather than allowing facts to guide their theory.


The “Heavy Gang” Legacy

What emerges is a disturbing portrait of the so-called “Heavy Gang,” a nickname for members of the Murder Squad and certain local Gardaí who repeatedly relied on coercion and intimidation to extract confessions. Clifford connects this methodology to future miscarriages of justice—from the Sallins train robbery to the notorious Kerry Babies scandal—demonstrating how these brutal tactics became an institutionalized failure, tacitly supported by higher-ups.


Human Tragedy and Institutional Moral Collapse

The human costs are impossible to ignore: Dick Donnelly’s conviction later overturned, Martin Conmey’s wrongful imprisonment for three years (his conviction quashed only in 2010 and formally recognized as a miscarriage of justice in 2014), and the most harrowing of all—Martin Kerrigan being abducted and murdered by disgraced family members, driven to violence by Garda-created suspicion.

Clifford spares no subtlety in his critique: the force was “ten years behind its European counterparts” in investigative methods, and deeply compromised by allegations of violence, perjury, and a fundamental disregard for due process.

As a narrative, the book shines. Clifford brings together interviews, archival documents, and court records to deliver a humane, precise, and investigatively sound portrait of both crime and policing gone wrong.

Yet, even as justice is belatedly acknowledged—with the Garda Commissioner issuing a written apology to Martin Conmey much later—it’s clear that the institutional failures of An Garda Síochána remain inadequately addressed. The system allowed these tragic injustices to occur, yet responsibility is still diffuse and unaccounted for. As Clifford writes, “nobody is responsible,” a damning indictment of organisational complacency.

[Louise Mullins · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't think I've ever read such a boring true crime book in my life. Two hundred tedious pages about a car being spotted, who spotted it, when, who contradicted the model and who agreed with the witnesses. I thought it would get better but it just got more dull. I couldn't care less by the end and totally forgot who the victim was and this is not good when it's her the reader should care about. Too much investment went into everyone else it lacked focus and structure.

[Gonzaga Escauriaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

La historia es real muy impresionante ver como la policia de investigación irlandesa actúa de una forma increiblemente arbitraria y utilizando la violencia y la tortura consigue confesiones de culpabilidad por parte de chicos jóvenes.
No quiero continuar para no ser spoiler.
El libro se lee fácil y es entretenido.

[Sinead Warren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who Killed Una Lynskey? by investigative journalist Mick Clifford is a gripping yet balanced account of the murder of 19-year-old Meath woman Una Lynskey in 1971, and the subsequent decimation of a small community. In what would become known as one of the most egregious policing failures in the history of the State, three local young men are identified publicly as suspects on the flimsiest of evidence and, within days, one would be beaten to death by Una’s family, furthering the tragedy. 

Through a series of interviews with surviving key witnesses and suspects, and exploring the files of a private investigator who went further than the Gardai ever did, Clifford sensitively and comprehensively sheds light on the extent of the botched investigation and the four families most grossly impacted by it. I alternated between reading and listening to this on BorrowBox and, in truth, listening is the way to go if you can. 

[Ruthie O’Connor · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very sad case and horrific miscarriage of justice. A good read.

[James Butler · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2