A disputed land sale lies at the heart of the tragedy which saw two men being laid to rest this week. Kathy Sheridan traces the series of events that led to a farmer shooting himself after he killed the man who bought his land
The land at Coolyhune was never a farmer's dream. Over half of the area of 26.75 acres advertised for sale in the winter of 2003 was "nearly bog, just fit for rough planting and with the only access down a long, rough laneway", according to one observer.
To anyone with an eye on the big picture, Michael Kehoe was going to do pretty well out of the agreement finally thrashed out in May, 1999, over the division between himself and his two siblings, Catherine and John, of his intestate parents' 55-acre estate in Co Carlow.
Although legally entitled to only a third of it, he had assumed ownership of the entire holding since his parents' death, based on his own belief - and crucially, that of an influential group of neighbours - that he was the one who had done the most work on the farm, herding and trading a few sheep and dry stock.
But all three Kehoe siblings had lived on the farm up to the time of their parents' death. The fact that Catherine, the eldest, had "more than paid her dues", in the view of one local, by contributing her "few shillings" from her job as a cook to the meagre farm income (while Michael claimed the dole), doing a share of farm work and caring for their ageing parents, seemed not to enter this equation.
The road to the auction, advertised for December 12th, 2003, was a bitter, painful and fearful 10-year journey.
The term "gentle giant", frequently used to describe Michael Kehoe in this week's headlines, has quietly enraged many people familiar with the long build-up to last Saturday's tragic events. Long before his victim, James Healy, became involved in the disputed land, Michael Kehoe had been a brooding, hostile presence for some.
The father's death in 1988 was followed by the death of their mother in 1993. Neither had made a will. Within three days of her death, as the legal situation became evident to Michael, Catherine was chased off the farm in fear of her life and would never return.
John, a farm labourer, would continue to come and go, but in recent years seems to have stayed away.
Michael was left to brood in the two-storey farmhouse down the long, lonely laneway, while Catherine and John took legal advice as to how the intestate estate should be divided.
In sharp contrast to the outgoing, much-loved young man he killed, Michael Kehoe was a loner by nature, considered "odd" by some. At 38, he was a bachelor who took a few pints in the pubs in Glynn a few nights a week, usually sitting alone, listening, but saying little. When he chose to talk it would be to another farmer and then the talk would be solely about farming. No one can remember him ever going on a date. When he worked on a Fás scheme in St Mullins, it was noted that he always lunched alone. He had no one close to him with whom he could bounce off thoughts and feelings.
"Farming wasn't his livelihood, it was his life. That land to him was like your child is to you," said a neighbour.
His sense of injustice being substantially fuelled by local farmers, he dug his heels in.
Each time Michael visited Catherine's property, she or her partner would be left cowering in fear. According to a source close to her, she called the Garda on at least 20 occasions between 1994 and 2005.
Their younger brother, John - who had been acting together with Catherine up to 2001 to have the estate administered - withdrew from the action due to the costs involved. But according to a source close to Catherine, he also was threatened by Michael, who claimed he could put him in "the mental hospital".
Five years after their mother died, and in the absence of any settlement proposal from Michael, Catherine took out administration of the estate. This eventually led to a deal. The agreement, duly signed by both Michael and herself, stipulated a sum of £45,000 (about €60,000) plus costs to settle her share of the estate. By any standard, it was a bargain for Michael, as the proceeds of the eventual sale of the 26.75 acres - well over €100,000 for the poorer half of the farm's acreage - would demonstrate.
At the time, however, the choice was his as to how he would raise the £45,000 and he had six months in which to do it.
He was not a man with cash assets. What he had, according to one observer, was "subsistence farming on a standard, early 1970s farm that had never been modernised . . . He was never going to be a model farmer". The poorly maintained house and run-down outhouses tell their own story. According to one neighbour, like many farmers, he had been forced to find off-farm work, working for a while at a nearby meat factory and on a local Fás project - a scheme allowing dole claimants to do limited paid work - in St Mullins cemetery.
To raise the £45,000, it is understood that he sought planning permission for a house on the farm. This appears to have been stymied by a requirement that he should be the first occupier and would therefore have to build the house himself.
Without cash or access to credit, this was not an option.
There the matter rested until Catherine, as the estate administrator, took legal action, which culminated in a High Court order in the autumn of 2003 that part of the farm be sold off.
Michael Kehoe's sense of grievance and poor grasp of reality were evident in his response to the ruling. He consulted at least four solicitors, who predictably, all came up with the same advice.
The sale was handled by David Hughes, an estate agent with an office in Kilkenny city and life-long resident of Graiguenamanagh, a few miles from Coolyhune. The 26.75 acre parcel was advertised for auction for four weeks in the Kilkenny People.
To any sensible person and despite all his foot-dragging, Michael Kehoe was getting a good deal. All going well, after the sale and settlement, he (along with his brother John, if the latter chose to claim his entitlement) would be left with 28 acres of decent land with valuable road frontage in a stunningly scenic area, plus the house, sheds and stock, plus a tidy sum of surplus cash - about €20,000 as it turned out - from the land sale which would revert to the estate after Catherine had received her €60,000 and legal costs of €25,000 (which had accrued due to his lack of co-operation), were paid. The law would have been satisfied and justice done.
He seemed to accept the inevitable. His only request was that no "For Sale" placard be put on the land. However, locals say that when potential buyers came to walk the land, he told them "in no uncertain terms" that they wouldn't be welcome.
Auction day was December 12th, 2003, in the Club House Hotel in Kilkenny. There were some eight to 10 people in the room, including Michael Kehoe, when three neighbouring farmers spoke up, telling the attendance: "This is not a free sale of land and no neighbour is going to bid on it and no one will be welcome in the area if they buy it". The auctioneer, David Hughes, replied that it was none of their business; that they did not know the facts; and advised them that on their way home, they should visit their solicitors and make a will, to ensure that something similar did not happen to them.
Contrary to reports, the auction did not stop there. A couple of bidders made offers but failed to reach the €80,000 reserve. Afterwards, the land was offered for sale to the highest bidder but was refused.
Two months later, on February 6th 2004, a further advertisement appeared offering the land for sale by private treaty. It was at this point that James Healy expressed an interest.
Before going to view the land, he was advised to make himself as inconspicuous as possible, "but not to go near your man". Five days later, after competing bids between him and the auction under-bidder, the 27 acres were sold to James Healy for more than €100,000. He bought it as an investment, according to a family neighbour.
Though not hugely separated in years, James Healy had lived a very different life to Michael Kehoe. The 30-year-old movie buff and Liverpool fanatic, who considered himself "a bit of an authority on the 80s music", in the words of his funeral celebrant, Fr Larry Malone, was an all-rounder, who studied science in Maynooth, became an IT expert and won a host of friends with his outreaching, gentle nature. After a period working in Dublin, he returned to Kilkenny where he would manage pharmacies owned by his brother Pierce, and be close to the large, extended Healy family. Two years ago, he married Yvonne, whom he met in Maynooth and he was devoted to "little James", Yvonne's eight-year-old son from a previous relationship.
Why a young man widely admired for his rather shy, diplomatic, non-confrontational manner, chose to become involved in a disputed land sale only 15 miles from his home, will remain a mystery to many rural people whose instinct is to stay clear of such sales. "The land was for sale. He wanted to buy it. He did nothing illegal. End of story," says an observer firmly.
But of course it wasn't the end of the story. Although summoned to a number of court hearings, Michael Kehoe had failed to attend. Catherine finally obtained an interlocutory injunction at Kilkenny Circuit Court last May, preventing Michael from entering or interfering with the disputed land. At that hearing, the judge inquired why the case had taken so long and ordered that Michael be brought before the court at the next hearing on November 1st next.
It is believed that he received a letter to that effect a few days before he shot James Healy and himself.
In the meantime, James Healy had also taken out an injunction against disruption by Michael.
Michael Kehoe was clearly on a downward spiral.
The Irish Independent this week quoted a man who had visited Michael Kehoe for the purpose of serving legal papers as saying he had been threatened by Michael two weeks before. Media reports painting Michael as someone who had been "very hard done-by" were wide of the mark. Michael Kehoe, said the visitor, had "by no means been a saint . . . He was a dangerous individual and I wouldn't have been the first person that he'd threatened".
Thomastown gardaí confirmed that they received a number of complaints from the Healy family alleging threats and intimidation from Michael Kehoe but said that the complaints were not of a very serious nature and had not required garda attendance.
The situation was becoming more acute, however, and James Healy was becoming more fearful. Fencing put down by him a week before had been pulled up. His visit to Coolyhune last Saturday with his brother Brian was another attempt to fence off his property. Beforehand, he had phoned gardaí at Graiguenamanagh to tell them he was going out to the disputed land.
At 10am, words were exchanged between him and Michael Kehoe over tractor access. An hour later, Kehoe - whose firearm licence had recently been renewed - returned with a shotgun and fired three shots, the first of which was in the air, but two of which found their mark. The second shot hit James Healy in the arm, severely disabling him; the third, fired at point blank range, killed him instantly.
As Brian Healy fled the scene to raise the alarm, Micheal Kehoe went into hiding. At 4pm he was finally spotted in an outhouse by armed detectives. For an hour and 45 minutes - while the police negotiator was said to be on the way - detectives tried to persuade the distraught man to come out. The negotiator had still not arrived by 6pm, when Michael Kehoe killed himself with a gunshot to the head. A senior Garda officer has been appointed to review the force's handling of the incident.
On Tuesday, a beautiful September day, the two men were laid to rest, 15 miles apart. In Paulstown, James Healy's grave, among several family plots, was massed with over 100 wreaths, one from Yvonne with a card addressed "to my soulmate" and beneath her message, a second one in the writing of a child: "To Big James, I will miss you, love Little James".
Meanwhile, in the idyllic surroundings of St Mullins, Michael Kehoe was also laid to rest, in a family plot dating back to 1846, having been carried there by cousins and neighbours, burly, stoical, hill farmers in their shirt-sleeves.
Among the 300 mourners, led by Catherine and John, were those who had supported Michael at the auction. "You'd wonder what they're thinking now", mused one local observer.
"Do they still believe that the law doesn't apply to farmers, that there's one law for farmers and another for the rest of us ? Surely the IFA has a responsibility to explain that farmers are not above the law, and that their members should be making their wills so that this doesn't happen to them?"
Meanwhile, Catherine Kehoe continues to live in the community, just a mile from the tragedy. She is extremely upset at the media reporting this week. But she is also willing to let it be known that she is "more upset" about the death of James Healy than that of her brother.