Having successfully avoided the media throughout the day yesterday, former Supreme Court judge Mr Hugh O'Flaherty was seen going for a swim with friends at Cooscrome Pier, near his holiday home at Cahirciveen, Co Kerry, last evening.
Asked to comment on the controversy surrounding him, Mr O'Flaherty replied, "I'd prefer not to, thank you," before joining his friend, Mr Ned Fitzgerald, father of the Kerry footballer, Maurice, for a brief swim. Afterwards, Mr O'Flaherty left the pier in a Volkswagen car driven by a family member, declining to comment further.
Mr O'Flaherty's Kerry friends rallied round yesterday. In the early afternoon, two friends guarded the entrance to the modest O'Flaherty green-and-white bungalow at Renard, two miles outside Cahirciveen, and asked callers what their business was. Mr O'Flaherty was not at home and would not be available.
There was no doubt where the sympathy of Kerry people lay. Former Kerry football star Mick O'Connell, a friend of Mr O'Flaherty, rounded on the Opposition parties and the media, accusing them of making a scapegoat out of him, in the case of the media for the purposes of sensationalism and in the case of the Opposition, the better to get at Fianna Fail.
Tralee-based barrister Mr Brian Curtin and his colleague, solicitor Mr Robert Pearse, of Listowel, joined in the criticism. Mr Curtin said there seemed to be a concerted campaign by certain sections of the media against Mr O'Flaherty. Mr Pearse said the controversy had been exaggerated by the media. Mr O'Flaherty was an honourable man and all his good work on the bench during a distinguished career had been ignored.