A woman has sued Lord Henry Mountcharles arising from an incident at a concert headlined by singer Bryan Adams at Slane Castle in 2000.
The woman claims three drunk men who were "pyramiding" collapsed on top of her, resulting in her having an operation and spending three weeks in hospital.
Her lawyer, Mr Declan Doyle SC, said building pyramids by standing on people's shoulders was dangerous on a sloping field, and the issue was whether the defendant should have stopped the incident happening.
The defence has denied negligence, and has pleaded there was contributory negligence on the part of Ms Jenny Stack. It has also pleaded that the incident was caused by third parties.
Mr Doyle, for Ms Stack (38), of Ferncourt Drive, Firhouse, Co Dublin, said his client was a self-employed interior decorator, and was among 40,000 people at the concert on August 26th, 2000.
She was on sloping ground and watching Bryan Adams when the incident occurred. Prior to this, a friend of hers had seen pyramiding taking place on two or three occasions. Nothing had been done to stop this, said Mr Doyle. Three men who were drunk had collapsed on Ms Stack, and had pinned her to the ground. She was unable to get them off as one man's legs were around her throat.
She bit one of them in a bid to get them off. Help eventually arrived, and the men got up, laughed and disappeared into the crowd. Mr Doyle said Ms Stack sustained an injury to her hip. Her medical history was somewhat complicated as she had an underlying degenerative condition caused by some discomfort in the past. After the concert, she spent three weeks in Tallaght Hospital, where she had a large screw inserted in her hip.
In evidence, Ms Stack said she was in excruciating pain after the incident, and was screaming for the men to get off her.
After they did so, she had extreme pain in her hip. She had cracked ribs on the right side, and a hair-line fracture in her hip. On September 14th, 2000, she underwent an operation, and was on crutches for some eight weeks.
Under cross-examination from Mr David Nolan SC, for Lord Henry, Ms Stack said a problem in her hip had been ongoing from Christmas 1999, and she had complained of a click in her left hip. She could not remember saying she could not sleep at night, but would accept that she had told her doctor that.
Asked how the original problem with her hip had arisen, she said she was showing off and had done the splits.
Mr Nolan said there were 537 security staff available on the day, with 12 snatch squads to react to incidents.
The hearing continues today.