Prosecuting counsel put it to murder accused Mrs Catherine Nevin yesterday that she was "spinning a gigantic yarn" to deceive a jury into thinking the IRA might have been behind the killing of her husband. Mrs Nevin denied the claim.
Mrs Nevin told the jury that she was in court to tell the truth, but counsel for the DPP Mr Peter Charleton SC put it to her that she was spinning a preposterous yarn and trying to apportion blame on the IRA for what she had arranged herself.
Her claim that her husband was a member of the IRA was a "gross defamation". He was cross-examining Mrs Nevin (49) on the 25th day of her trial at the Central Criminal Court for the murder of her husband Tom (54), on March 19th, 1996 in their home at Jack White's Inn, Ballinapark, Co Wicklow.
Mrs Nevin denied that she and her husband had a troubled marriage or that they had ever contemplated separating. She denied saying as much to a number of prosecution witnesses and denied the evidence of Ms Caroline Strahan, a former worker at Jack White's Inn, that she saw Mrs Nevin and ex-Garda inspector Mr Tom Kennedy in bed together.
Cross-examined on a number of alleged contacts in pubs and hotels with Mr Kennedy, Mrs Nevin accepted that she had met him a number of times away from Jack White's, but denied that they had stayed at the Horse and Hound Inn, Ballinaboola, Co Wexford together. Both she and Mr Kennedy have denied having a sexual affair.
Mrs Nevin also denied saying to staff that she had lent keys of Jack White's to Judge Donnchadh O Buachalla. "I never said I lent my keys to Judge O Buachalla, which I didn't." O Buachalla never had any keys to Jack White's", she said. She also denied that she had some involvement with the missing keys because she had to get them to the men who got into the Inn and killed her husband.
Mr Charleton began his cross-examination by asking Mrs Nevin to describe her late husband. She said he was very private and "tried to keep his business life and his personal life confined to himself and myself". He had his interests and "his political friends", she said, but he prioritised her and their marriage first and their business next.
"Tom and I did not have a troubled marriage, there was nothing wrong in our marriage", she said. She felt they were both "very happy".
Asked when the last time was they went on holidays together, she said they were in Wexford for one or two days possibly, a year before his death. She thought they stayed in the Horse and Hound Inn, Ballinaboola. She denied staying there with Mr Kennedy.
She said she and her husband often met and had meals there. Mr Kennedy would sometimes be there, she said, and the three would meet or Mr Kennedy would join them for a drink. She said that "over the years" the three of them had meals there "several times".
Sometimes she stayed at the Horse and Hound by herself when she was returning from one of Darina Allen's cookery courses in Co Cork. She saw Mr Kennedy at the Horse and Hound sometimes when her husband wasn't there.
Mr Charleton also questioned the accused on her allegation that a man with a long coat and a briefcase came to see her husband and exchanged sterling for other money from the safe.
"Are you saying that moneylaundering was what was going on with the long man?", asked Mr Charleton. Mrs Nevin said she did not know, but yes, if that's what counsel was saying it was.
Mrs Nevin also told the court that her husband had taken out a "small insurance policy" which she thought was worth about £70,000. Her solicitor had come across it when handling the probate, she said. She agreed that Mr Nevin died intestate and that legally, she was the ultimate inheritor of his estate.
She recalled having lunch with Mr Kennedy at Toss Byrne's pub, near Gorey, Co Wexford. She agreed it might have happened "more than once".
Mrs Nevin denied she and her husband had contemplated splitting up or that she had contemplated buying his half of the business. "That is absolutely out of the question".
She said of an alleged assault on her by Mr Nevin that it had done no damage to her. She went to James's Hospital the following day but was told she was fine, she said. "Did it ever happen?", Mr Charleton asked. "Yes, it happened, yes", she said.
She denied ever showing Mr John Jones her black eyes and said her husband would "never do that sort of thing".
On her allegation that her husband was an alcoholic, Mrs Nevin said he liked to mix spirits into a glass of Guinness, and he would drink spirits alone after the pub closed. Mr Charleton suggested that what appeared to be half a glass of stout on the counter where Mr Nevin was doing his books on the night he was shot might appear inconsistent with alcoholism.
The accused she had "no idea" why Assistant Commissioner Jim McHugh said she had told him that Mr Nevin drank a litre of whiskey a day. She said the Assistant Commissioner's evidence that she had told him she and Mr Nevin had contemplated separation was "slightly different the way Mr McHugh recollects it".
She denied saying to Ms Anne-Marie Finnerty, Mr Nevin's niece, that she and her husband were splitting up and the pub would be sold before Christmas.
She had no idea why a carpet fitter, Mr Donncha Long, would say that she told him her husband was "a queer" or that she would "do him or have him done".
"Tom was not a queer and I didn't hate my husband and I never had that conversation with that man", she said.
When Mr Charleton asked if she was suggesting that the Assistant Commissioner was getting his account garbled, and that both Ms Finnerty and Mr Long were wrong, Mrs Nevin replied: "I cannot account for what other people say or how they interpret things".
"With regard to that gentleman", she said of the carpet fitter, "I most certainly never said that about my husband. I was lucky and privileged to be married to one of the nicest men and to be married into one of the most respectable families in Galway, and I cherish that."
She later told Mr Charleton, "I never at any stage of our married life wanted Tom out of my life, ever, Tom was a big, big part of my married life, and he always will be", she said.
The cross-examination of Mrs Nevin continues today before Ms Justice Carroll.