Woman receives life sentence for Lough Sheelin murders

Ruth Lawrence has been handed life sentences for a double murder in April 2014.

The 45-year-old, who’s from Clontarf in Dublin, was found guilty last month of murdering childhood friends, Eoin O’Connor and Anthony Keegan.

It was the State’s case that she and her partner lured and murdered them over a significant drug debt owed to Mr O’Connor.

The men were shot dead and their bodies were dumped on Inchicup Island on Lough Sheelin, before the couple fled to South Africa.

At today's sentence hearing, Eoin O’Connor’s daughter, Brooke called him her hero.

Anthony Keegan’s sister, Margaret, said he was loyal and caring — and that his loyalty to his friend ultimately cost him his life.

nor but that it “went wrong.”