Irish immigrant’s murder likely was a botched robbery say police

Another person robbed in Boston neighborhood around same time

What started out as a day of celebrating his Irish heritage, ended in tragedy on Sunday, with the murder of an Irish immigrant in Dorchester, Boston. He was apparently the victim of a botched robbery.

Ciaran Conneely (36), originally from the Aran Islands in Co Galway, was the victim of a shooting, in the early hours of Monday morning, outside his home on 20 Nahant Ave, in Dorchester. A native Irish speaker, he had spent the afternoon at the annual Irish Heritage Festival in Adams Corner.

Local police discovered the Irishman’s body when they arrived on Nahant Avenue shortly after 1am on Monday morning, after an off duty firefighter called them.

The victim was pronounced dead on the scene.

The motive definitely seems to be robbery. Around the same time that he was shot a woman reported that she was robbed at gunpoint on Ashmont Street which runs parallel to Nahant Avenue where his body was found.

An off duty firefighter, Mark Folan discovered the Irishman’s body at 1am near the complex where they both lived.

“I checked his pulse,’’ Folan said, “but there was none. He was cold.’’

“He was such a nice, quiet guy,’’ he said.

Conneely, known to his friends as Kiwi, worked in construction and had not been home in ten years because of  his undocumented status.

Last month he was injured when a gypsy cab driver assaulted him during a dispute over a fare, slashing him with with a razor across his ear. Conneely did not report the crime because of his status.

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Originally from Inis Meain in the Aran Islands, the construction worker had been living in the U.S. for 12 years and had become undocumented. He had last returned home for the tragic funeral of his older brother Michael Dara O’Conghaile, who was swept out to sea by a freak wave on a pier on the island.

Friends of the victim and locals in the area remain in shock over the killing of the man who they knew as “Kiwi”.

A close friend of Conneely’s, Martin (who declined to give his last name), from Connemara in Co. Galway, paid tribute to his “good friend”.

“He was a really nice guy, really easy going, he would never harm anybody,” he told the Irish Voice.

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Nster.com