Man who faced death penalty after being wrongfully convicted of Garda murders dies

A man who was sentenced to death for murdering two gardai in a bank raid in Roscommon in 1980 has died at his home in Connemara.

Peter Pringle served 15 years in jail before he was released in 1995 after his convictions were deemed unsafe and quashed.

He was sentenced to death for the capital murders of two gardai, John Morley and Henry Byrne, during a bank robbery in Ballaghaderreen in July 1980 which shocked the nation.

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Two other men, Colm O’Shea and Pat McCann, were also sentenced to death for the murders of the two gardai. They, along with Peter Pringle, had their death sentences commuted in 1981 by then President Patrick Hillary to penal servitude of 40 years.

O’Shea and McCann served 33 years in jail and were released from prison in 2013.

Peter Pringle, whose son Thomas is an Independent TD from Donegal, served 14 years and ten months in prison before the Court of Criminal Appeal in 1995 found his convictions to be unsafe and unsatisfactory. He pursued a number of civil actions against the State.

In 2012 he married Sunny Jacobs, who was placed on death row in 1976 in Florida for the murder of two police officers.

31/1/2018 - Peter Pringle and Sonia (Sunny) Jacobs pictured at the Four Courts for a High Court action. (Collins Courts)

She served 17 years before she was exonerated. After her release she campaigned for the abolition of the death penalty and met Peter Pringle after she travelled to Ireland to speak at an Amnesty International event in 1998.

They have lived in a cottage in Connemara for more than a decade.

Peter Pringle, who was 84, died on New Year’s Eve at his home at Glenicmurrin, Costelloe, Co. Galway. He is survived by his wife Sunny, daughter Anna and sons Thomas and John, along with 12 grandchildren.

He will repose at Naughton’s funeral parlour in Inverin, Connemara, today from 5pm-7pm and will be cremated on Tuesday after a ceremony in Shannon Crematorium.

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