A KERRY farmer yesterday claimed “history was repeating itself” and he was forced to act in self-defence in a dispute over a right-of-way to a land-locked field near Listowel.
John Leahy (40), Meen, Listowel, has pleaded not guilty at the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee to threatening to kill three members of the Carmody family, Patrick snr, Patrick jnr and John. He also denies assault causing harm to Roger Carmody on October 2nd, 2007 and has pleaded not guilty to assaulting Jack Sullivan, all at Meen, Listowel on the same date.
John Leahy said the Carmodys were jealous of him leasing land from an adjoining farm and were trying to make things as difficult as possible for him by knocking his ditches to reopen a right-of-way long abandoned. The rusty claw hammer used by Mr Leahy to strike Roger Carmody was on display in the court on the second day of the trial.
Roger Carmody told the court on Wednesday that Mr Leahy had struck him “right down on top of the head” with a hammer in the middle of the right-of-way to the field.
He said Mr Leahy wanted to frighten the Carmodys out of “the field”, a silage field with a river which they owned at the back of the Leahy farmyard.
The court heard yesterday that in the land registry documents there were two rights-of-way through Mr Leahy’s land to “the field”, 5½ acres known also as the bank meadow owned by the Carmody family at the rear of Mr Leahy’s farmyard.
However, the right-of-way at the top of the Leahy haggard where the incident occurred in October 2007 “had not been used in 40 years” when on October 2nd, 2007, a digger was used to open up new gaps in Mr Leahy’s ditches to get to the abandoned right-of- way to the field, Mr Leahy said.
He said he got off his tractor and was closing one of the gaps when he saw Roger Carmody and Mr Sullivan approaching.
Roger Carmody gave the thumbs down signal to him and he went back to his tractor to get the claw hammer he always kept on the tractor floor to pull thorny wire.
Prosecuting counsel Tom Rice asked Mr Leahy if reaching for a hammer was an appropriate response to a thumbs down sign. Mr Leahy said he was being threatened, he saw Pat Carmody snr approaching with a four-pronged pike and he had in mind an incident a year previously in which he claimed he was surrounded by three of the Carmodys and was threatened from behind with an iron bar. and he felt he could have been killed.
Roger Carmody and Mr Sullivan came at him with fists and kicks. He responded.
He had the hammer raised intending to hit Roger Carmody on the shoulder but Roger Carmody raised his hand when he saw the hammer coming down, and the hammer glanced off his hand and struck him a glancing blow on the top of his head.
He denied Roger Carmody was knocked out with the blow, but claimed he saw him winking at his brother Patrick while he was still lying on the ground and drinking half a jug of water.
“Going back generations they always travel in threes. My great grandfather got a revolver from the State to protect himself from them. They had his grave dug to bury him. History repeats itself, I’m afraid. That’s what’s after happening here.”
The trial before a jury and Judge Carroll Moran continues.