Mr Patrick Gillane has told his trial about his sexual relationship with his murdered wife's sister, Ms Bridie Gordon, but claimed Ms Gordon was continually "shoving herself" at him. He said that near Christmas 1993 he told his wife, Philomena, about the affair. She thought at first it was "a big joke" but when he told her it was the truth, she was not very happy.
They were living at the Gordon family home, Beechlawn House, Caltra, after their marriage and the birth of their child, John Michael Gillane, on August 8th, 1993. He wanted to leave there to get away from Philomena's sister, Bridie.
He said, in reply to prosecuting counsel, Mr Edward Comyn SC: "I went down on my knees crying to Philomena, begging her to leave but she refused. She said her mother would not agree."
He agreed he spent three days in a sexual relationship with Bridie in Lisdoonvarna in September 1993 but claimed it was his sister-in-law who wanted to go there. Their relationship started at the Rose of Tralee festival in 1992.
He finally told his wife about the affair because he was feeling guilty this was going on behind her back, and she did not deserve that.
Mr Gillane denied a repeated suggestion by Mr Comyn that by December 1993 and January 1994 he felt trapped in a marriage to Philomena but still fancied her sister much more. It was not true that Bridie still had "a strong sexual hold" over him at that time.
He had told Bridie their relationship could not continue and it was not true he could not "screw up the courage", as counsel suggested, to end it.
Asked by Mr Comyn about how he met his wife, Mr Gillane said he first saw her in a Dublin pub when she was with "a blondie woman". She came to him and they chatted. He was not sure if she told him she was from Galway. "She was a very discreet girl," said Mr Gillane.
He next met her in O'Donoghue's pub in Lisdoonvarna some three or four weeks later, in September 1991. There was afternoon dancing in the pub for the festival, and as he was off work that day he went there.
"Philomena was dancing with another guy and I didn't recognise her until she came over to me and said she had seen me before," he said. He gave her his sister's telephone number "on the back of a matchbox" but she declined to give him hers.
Mr Gillane said he met her soon after that when he went to hear a country and western band in Kiltormer. She came over to him again and it was from then they became boyfriend and girlfriend. He lived 40 miles away in the Gort area and would call to the Gordon family home to meet Philomena when she was home from work.
He told Mr Comyn he did not meet Bridie Gordon until "a long time" after he began going out with Philomena. His sexual relationship with Bridie did not start until he had been going out with her sister for perhaps two years.
He said his sexual relationship with Bridie resumed after the birth of his son because "she was always shoving herself at me". It was not true, as she had claimed in evidence, that he was always pestering her. He "wanted out" of that house, but Philomena would not leave.
Asked by Mr Comyn why he told Det Garda Thomas Byrne about "the good times" he had with Bridie Gordon and that she did not like it when her sister came home from work, Mr Gillane said he was under "extreme pressure" by the gardai. "They would put words into my mouth. I would say some things without meaning them because of the pressure I was under. I was close to cracking up with the pressure I was under," he said.
Asked by Mr Comyn about his claim to gardai that Bridie Gordon wanted him to leave Philomena to go with her, the accused replied that his sister-in-law commented at one time that she should have "won" him.
Referring to the time that Philomena assaulted him in Bergin's pub, Mr Comyn asked the accused to explain what she meant when she said she would take everything he had, and why he had also mentioned that to gardai.
Mr Gillane replied: "She used to say that sort of thing, but there was no meaning to it. She was an independent person and very discreet." The question of separation or paying maintenance never came into it.
Mr Gillane said he and Philomena were building a house on the side of his farmland at Gort after their marriage. The Gordon family was providing some of the money for it.