This was not an emotional decision by the jury, but one based on careful consideration of the facts. It would have been easy for them to go away for a few hours on Friday and come back with the guilty verdict that everybody expected, but the nature of the queries they had after being sent to the jury room indicates they were determined that their decision would be the result of a dedicated and forensic examination of all that they had heard for the previous four weeks.

There has been much comment recently about whether juries reflect the make up of the community they live in, but there is no doubt that yesterday, these 11 individuals did a great job on behalf of their fellow citizens.

By ensuring that a callous and brutal murderer has been imprisoned for the next 20 years, they have done valuable work, and deserve the long holiday from jury service awarded to them yesterday by the trial judge, Barry White.

The brutality of Rachel O'Reilly's murder was not its only distinguishing feature.

It was also one of the most cynical we have ever seen in this country. Joe O'Reilly's behaviour before and after he killed his wife demonstrated an amoral and sociopathic character. The e-mails to his sister, in which he referred to his wife in hateful and angry terms, were shocking enough. But it was his efforts . . . in phonecalls to his dead wife on the day of her murder and a month afterwards . . . to portray himself as a loving husband which really took the breath away. He became, in the course of the trial, an entirely unsympathetic figure, with an apparently unshakeable belief in his ability to stay one step ahead of the gardai in their investigations.

Joe O'Reilly appeared at some level to believe that he had committed the perfect murder. Certainly, his behaviour in the weeks after the killing, during which he demonstrated a desperate need for attention, was bizarre. His "renactments" of the murder for his wife's family . . . details of which can be revealed for the first time today . . . were the actions of a man torn between a deep desire to be found out and and to have his murderous deed acknowledged. In the end, however, it was a combination of his own hubris and ignorance of technological advances . . .mobile phone masts, CCTV cameras etc . . .that brought about his downfall.

Our thoughts turn now to the extended O'Reilly family, who have watched their son and brother throw his life away, and to Rachel's family, the Callallys, who conducted themselves with such dignity and bravery over the course of the trial. Mostly, however, we offer our best wishes to the two children of Joe and Rachel O'Reilly, who have lived without a mother for almost three years and who must now cope with the absence of a father they will not see outside of prison until they are well into their adulthood. It is to be hoped that no bitter custody battle ensues between the two families and that these two boys, their innocence having been so savagely taken away in October 2004, are provided with the emotional and material tools to make something positive of their lives.