A Co Dublin couple, branded as "neighbours from Hell" in a court case, have risked paying a €40,000 legal bill and damages in an attempt to clear their names in a High Court appeal.
Mr Martin and Mrs Kathleen Meehan had been held to have shattered the peace of an up-market terrace in Blackrock by playing the voices of RTÉ radio presenters David Hanley and, at weekends, Ciarán Mac Mathúna, at full blast.
Mr Meehan, an accountant, and his wife, who live at Bellevue Park Avenue, Blackrock, have asked Mr Justice Herbert to reverse a decision of the Circuit Civil Court which held them responsible for a noise nuisance and ordered them to pay legal costs of more than €12,000.
Their next-door neighbours, chartered surveyor Mr Patrick Sheeran and his wife Phil, had sued them in an attempt to stop what was described as intolerable noise "tantamount to that from a ship's engine room or a helicopter revving for take-off".
Mr Sheeran said the Meehans turned up their kitchen radio and television radio channel full volume to listen to early-morning programmes on RTÉ 1.
Mrs Meehan told the court that since 1989 they were in the habit of leaving their radio on when they went out to give would-be burglars the impression there was still someone inside.
She said Mr Sheeran continued to complain even after they had a volume control fitted to their radio. The Sheerans had put out noisy wind chimes in their garden on weekends when they were away, she claimed.
For two days, at an estimated minimum cost of €8,000 a day, the warring neighbours have relived their experiences to Mr Justice Herbert who begins a third day's hearing tomorrow.