The daughter of murdered Tipperary DJ Bobby Ryan says her life as she knew it ended when her father died and that she will never have closure.
The father-of-two was killed by Patrick Quirke, who buried him in a run-off tank in Fawnagowan, Tipperary in June, 2011.
Quirke, 52, from Breanshamore, murdered him in a bid to get back with ex-lover Mary Lowry.
Quirke was convicted of Mr Ryan's murder in 2019 after the longest murder trial in the history of the state.
Michelle Ryan said her life is just an "existence" now since her dad was killed, adding that she was "disgusted" during the trial.
After Quirke lost his appeal last year, she said she hoped the family might get a sense of peace but "the harsh reality" was that "it's never going to come back again".
"For us, an element of justice has been done but it's all very well to say that, we don't have daddy back so for that reason, we're never going to get inner peace or peace in our minds, " she told RTE's Brendan O'Connor show.
"Time isn't a healer in these circumstances, I never got to say goodbye to daddy. We couldn't see him in the coffin so to me, in my head, he's not there.
"Going to the graveyard, that's a no-no for me...when I got into the graveyard it's just a picture of him on a plaque.
"Because I couldn't actually see him and because he was gone missing 22 months beforehand, there was no closure there for me and there never has been.
"I was talking to him one day, and then the next day we were out on a search. It’s very hard to put it in words what that does to a person.
“I couldn’t give him a kiss goodbye, the only thing I could do was hug a box, that was it, before he was taken out of the funeral home.
“I light my candles here for him every day religiously, I praise away or talk away to him on a daily basis, for me that’s my way of dealing with it.”
Her father's death hangs over her and her brother Robert "every single day" Michelle said, and there's not a night that they "aren't still hearing daddy calling for help".
"Our minds are constantly going, we have no peace in our own heads," she added.
Michelle said she still has many questions about her dad's final moments, and she hopes these can be answered in the years ahead.
"We need to know, there's only so much reassurance that anyone can give us," she explained.
"The gards have no way of telling us, they can tell us that due to the injuries, it's highly unlikely he was alive [going into the tank] but we don't actually know.
"There's at least one person who knows the answer and I believe that he [Quirke] does hold the answer.
"Will he ever come to the surface and say, this is what happened, I don't believe it, I don't think he ever will."
She said she hates the fact that details of her father's relationships and private life we made public during the trial.
"It is upsetting, my father was a very private person and that's the part that upset me the most,” Michelle said.
“I remember thinking, were we in a family law court or were we here on a murder trial?
"I was disgusted at that...because at the end of the day, we had an innocent man whose life was cut entirely too short and that was forgotten about in that courtroom and all of a sudden it was about these two people [Quirke and Mary Lowry].
“And I was like, my father lost his life, where does Bobby Ryan...where did Mr Moonlight fit into a triangle, because there was no triangle. Daddy had no threat to pose to anybody.
"Where did Bobby Ryan fit into this? It was no longer known as a murder trial, it was called a love triangle which is very insulting to my father because he was the victim of the most serious crime anybody could commit.
"He was forgotten about."
Michelle added that she and her family's lives were also taken away from them.
"It wasn’t just Daddy’s life that was taken back then, it was our life as well. It was stripped completely from underneath us like Daddy’s life was,” she said.
“We used to enjoy ourselves, we used to look forward to anything that was going on, now we don’t because there could be 1,000 people in a room and it’s still empty because you don’t hear that big bubbly laugh and you don’t see that big bright smile - Daddy should be there.”
The family carry "pain, sorrow and the black cloud" in the years since his death and he is missed every minute of every day.
Michelle said her life as she knew it ended upon her dad's death and she puts on a brave face for her own children.
"I paint on the smile, I have kids that are looking on at me and I don't want to dim their light so I do try my best, but inside I have the lump in the throat," she said.
"I have to actually kind of disconnect myself, remove myself and gather my thoughts, life is never going to be the same after that.
“My life as I knew it ended when my father’s life ended, the only way I can describe my life now is that it’s an existence.
"I hope there is a next life when my time on this earth is finished and he will be there waiting for me.
“That will be the one smile that I actually genuinely mean since the last time I saw Daddy, it won’t be painted on.”
