Evil serial killer Mark Nash refused transfer from high security Midlands prison to ‘cushy’ Arbour Hill

Evil killer Mark Nash has been refused a transfer back to his old cell at cushy Arbour Hill Prison.

The brute was moved from the Dublin jail known as “The Hill” to the high-security Midlands Prison in Portlaoise seven years ago.

In 1997, Nash killed four people in two separate attacks – but it took almost two decades before the full horror of his serial killing spree came to light.

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A source revealed Nash applied to be moved back to Arbour Hill where he was once housed but his request was turned down by prison bosses.

The Mayo-born murderer, who was raised in England, at one point befriended twisted bondage killer Graham Dwyer at the Laois jail but the pair have since drifted apart. His transfer request refusal has hit Nash hard as he wanted to serve out the rest of his sentence at drug-free Arbour Hill which is less regimental.

The source told the Sunday Mirror: “Nash loved Arbour Hill Prison as there is a very laid back regime.

“Inmates are either old or nearing the end of their sentence whereas the Midlands Prison has some of the most dangerous inmates in the country including killers and rapists.

“A large proportion at Arbour Hill are elderly or not deemed violent or dangerous.

“Nash hoped he would be moved back to Arbour Hill. He applied to be transferred but was refused. It will no doubt have been a big blow for him. One reason why he may have been refused is what he is in prison for.”

The 49-year-old was handed a double life sentence for butchering Catherine and Carl Doyle and leaving his girlfriend Sarah Jane Doyle seriously injured.

Nash had turned from a “Dr Jekyll into a Mr Hyde” a court was told of the August 1997 attack.

Shortly after his arrest for the killings, Nash admitted the double murder of two women at Grangegorman in Dublin five months earlier, then withdrew his confession.

He was charged with the Grangegorman murders in October 2009 after a DNA breakthrough. A cold case review led to both victims’ DNA being found on a velvet jacket belonging to the twisted killer.

In 2015 he was convicted of murdering Sylvia Shiels, 59, and Mary Callinan, 61, in sheltered accommodation on the hospital grounds in March 1997.

Mary had been an inpatient since 1966 and Sylvia was first admitted in 1980.

Both women were found butchered in their beds.

Their throats had been cut and both suffered savage genital and facial injuries with a carving fork and other implements. Nash will likely die in jail after his application to the European Court of Human Rights over his conviction for the Grangegorman murders was rejected in 2020.

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