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Philomena Gillane's grave at Kilmacduagh cemetery
The tragic mother of one
May 17, 2009
VOL 26 NO 20
The body in the boot
The murder of Philomena Gillane 15 years ago this month was described as an event that 'disfigured the face of the west of Ireland'. In the locale where she lived her troubled last years, a legacy of deep trauma lingers over the violence of her death, the bitter family feuding that resulted and the question that remains to this day: just who did kill the 42-year-old pregnant mother of one?
Husband Pat Gillane, who was sentenced to eight years in prison over his wife's death
Gardaí examine Philomena's car, in which her body was discovered, at Athone train station
Beechlawn, the Gordon family home, where Philomena Gillane (née Gordon) lived
Gardai search for evidence after the discovery of Philomena's body
Sister Bridie Gordon outside the courthouse at the trail
At the edge of the Burren, close to the Galway and Clare border, is the 12th century monastic ruin at Kilmacduagh, Gort. The historic round tower that remains was once a place of refuge in this remote, windswept landscape. It now stands silently as a marker for the cemetery lying in its imposing shadow. This is where Philomena Gillane was laid to rest in May 1994, in her husband's family plot. Buried with her is the baby son she was carrying at the time of her murder.
The body of the 42-year-old Galway woman was discovered on 18 May at Athlone railway station, stuffed into the boot of her car. Philomena, from Beechlawn, near the village of Caltra, had been missing for a week. She had been shot in the back and stabbed six times. It was an event all the more horrific for the people of the west of Ireland to take in as it came a week after the murders of Imelda Riney, her three-year-old son Liam and Fr Joe Walsh in the woods of Co Clare. But there was one big difference between these two separate events. The killer in the triple murder case, Brendan O'Donnell, was subsequently arrested and charged. But Philomena Gillane's murderer has never been found. Neither have the murder weapons. At her funeral, the Rev Paul Quinn referred to her violent end as an event that "disfigured the face of the beautiful west of Ireland".
Exactly 15 years on, Caltra remains much the same, except for that recent addition common to small rural villages – a new residential development has risen up on the outskirts. Further on, past these smart, brightly-painted houses, and down a long country lane, is the big period farmhouse at Beechlawn from where Philomena left on her last journey in May 1993. One brother still lives there. Her younger sister Bridie lives at Beechlawn too, but in her own neat, modern bungalow, built on the edge of the farmland. One local who moved to live in the village in more recent years says memories of the savage events of that summer have faded with the passing of time. "You never really hear anyone talk of it now," he says. But for another more long-standing Caltra villager, the recollections remain. "The murder is still remembered vividly in the locality as a great tragedy – and all the more tragic as it remains unsolved."
To Philomena's colleagues at St Colmcille's Hospital in Loughlinstown, Co Dublin, where she worked as a cook, the cheery wife and mother seemed to have everything going for her. She was described as the "heart and soul of the kitchen". Philomena had worked on the catering staff in the hospital for 19 years, but in the spring of 1994 she was expecting her second child and had arranged shifts on a week-on, week-off basis. She would drive to Dublin, staying in the nurses' quarters when she was on duty, crucially, as it was to unfold, out of contact with her husband and family while she was away.
Peggy Loughrey, catering officer at the hospital at that time, told the Irish Independent she had known Philomena for six years, describing her colleague as happy and good-natured. Their last conversation had been on the May bank holiday, just before Philomena left the hospital to drive home to Caltra to her husband Pat and their baby son John Michael. "She talked about her second pregnancy and how she was looking forward to moving into her new home." When the dependable Philomena didn't show up for work at 10am on Wednesday 11 May, hospital staff initially became concerned, especially because the weather was bad and their colleague was known as a "fast driver". But they knew she was careful and would never pick up a hitchhiker, telling staff on previous occasions that she always drove with the car doors locked.
Philomena's farmhouse home had no phone. When there was still no news of her by Friday, the then hospital manager John Hempenstall decided to write asking when she could resume work. Fears for her safety grew when Pat Gillane phoned the hospital at teatime on Sunday, asking to speak to his wife. He rang from Bergin's pub in Mount Bellew, as was their routine, every weekend when she was on duty. "Needless to say he was terribly shocked. He rang back on Tuesday as well and was desperate to know if she might be here," said Hempenstall. After Gillane rang the gardaí over an hour later, officers from Mountbellew and from the local Shankill station contacted the hospital on Sunday to find out from staff if there were other friends Philomena might have gone to stay with.
If staff had no idea of her whereabouts, they were also in the dark about the tortured home life of their seemingly blessed colleague. Just before Christmas 1993, the three-months pregnant Philomena discovered that her husband had been having an affair with her younger sister Bridie.
The details of how Philomena's brief two-year marriage ended in her brutal killing were revealed at the trial of her husband Pat Gillane who was found guilty in December l997 of soliciting two Dublin men to kill his wife. He was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Pat Gillane and Philomena Gordon first met in the Merchant pub in Dublin's Winetavern Street in early 1991. That casual encounter took a more serious turn nine months later when the two Galway natives met again at the Matchmaking Festival in Lisdoonvarna. At that stage, Pat Gillane was keen, Philomena less so. She wouldn't give him her telephone number, but he scribbled his sister's number on the back of a matchbox and gave it to her. Despite her initial reluctance, her Dublin boyfriend at the time was dropped, and Philomena and Pat became lovers. When she discovered she was pregnant, they married at Knock shrine in April 1993 and their son was born that August.
The couple began married life at Beechlawn House where Philomena lived with her mother Nora 'Nonie' Gordon, her brothers Paddy and Martin, and sisters Mary and Bridie. A Georgian farmhouse may sound grand, and while Beechlawn was a "big house" in historic country terms, there was no running water and no telephone. And yet, for Philomena's new husband, living there was a step up the social ladder. Pat Gillane had had a tough life, striving to make a living on the small farm at Gort, but forced to work stints as a part-time lorry driver to bring in much-needed cash.
In his book Irish Crimes of Passion, journalist Liam Collins described the 32-year-old Gillane as having gained new-found security with Philomena. "His marriage to the older woman had given him a taste for the good things in life and the social standing he had found living with the Gordons." But it wasn't enough. Gillane had already developed a forbidden taste that would prove ruinous for both families. The affair with his wife's younger sister began back in August 1992 when he brought Bridie Gordon to the Rose of Tralee festival. It continued through the following year. Just after Philomena gave birth in August 1993, Gillane and his 37-year-old sister-in-law spent an illicit weekend together at the Matchmaking Festival in Lisdoonvarna – the place where his relationship with Philomena began two years earlier. Bridie Gordon, later giving evidence, said she ended the affair after that weekend. "I didn't want to do it to my sister. But he kept forcing me. He kept pestering me to go off with him. I don't know why they lived in Beechlawn House. I had no say."
Gillane said in court that he felt "trapped" in his marriage, while Bridie was "always shoving herself at me". He claimed he was racked with guilt about Philomena. "I felt what I was doing was very wrong to her," adding that he tried to persuade his wife to move out of the Gordon family home, thereby removing the physical temptation posed by her sister. "I went down on my knees crying to Philomena, begging her to leave Beechlawn House. We could have moved to a cottage I had in Gort. But she wouldn't move. She said her mother would never agree."
Shortly before Christmas 1993, Philomena learned of the affair between her husband and her sister. Gillane said it was he who confessed. "I thought that when I told her about Bridie that she would come with me. She wasn't very happy when I told her."
A very public row between the couple took place in Bergin's Bar in Mountbellew, where Bridie was employed. The bar was packed with revellers enjoying a Christmas drink. "I remember being in the pub with Bridie that day. I'm not sure whether I had told Philomena or not at the time," Gillane said at his trial. Witnesses recalled that Philomena came into the pub and was incensed. She slapped her husband on the face. "I'll take everything you have," she shouted at him before storming home in her car.
The row continued back at the farmhouse when Gillane arrived home. "He was very drunk; he nearly broke the door down," Bridie Gordon later testified, adding that Philomena was "annoyed with me, naturally enough". Nonie Gordon was also present when Gillane ranted about his affair with Bridie. "The Gordons... you think you are all high and mighty," he cried. Bridie Gordon says she subsequently had a conversation with Gillane, as reported in coverage of the trial in the Connaught Tribune, telling him she hoped Philomena's second baby would be a little girl. "He said 'you never told me she was pregnant' and he ran upstairs and attacked Phil. He didn't want that child. The way he was acting, he was mad over it."
After the horrendous rows at Christmas, Philomena agreed to the couple building their own house near Gillane's farm at Glenbrack. She was said to have paid for most of the work. But, according to newspaper reports, she consulted lawyers about a separation in the spring of 1993. Philomena wanted custody of their son, maintenance payments and half the value of the Gillane farm. Whatever about her own considerable savings in the bank, and the fact that she drove a 91 reg car, she took her role as the main breadwinner very seriously. She had to continue working at the hospital in Dublin.
A security camera showed Philomena leaving the Bank of Ireland in Mountbellew on Tuesday 10 May. She was wearing the same clothes she was found in a week later. On Wednesday 11 May, she rose quickly, pulling on her outdoor clothes over her nightwear, and hurried down the steps at Beechlawn House to drive to Loughlinstown for work. It was still only around 6.40am. Nonie Gordon would later say she thought she heard a gunshot, but didn't remark on it as being especially unusual at the time.
Six days later, gardaí declared Philomena Gillane a missing person. The next day, Pat Gillane went on Morning Ireland, pleading to anyone with information on her whereabouts to come forward. "My head is in a daze and I just don't know what to do. I feel something strange has happened," he said.
Paul Gillespie, a bus driver who was ? listening, made a note of the registration of the missing woman's car. The following morning, Wednesday 18 May, he spotted Philomena's maroon Opel Kadett hatchback parked at Athlone Railway station. A week had passed since her disappearance. Gillespie rang the gardaí. The car keys were still in the ignition. A travel case with clothes, make-up and other personal items lay open on the passenger seat. The car was locked but the cord of an anorak was hanging from the boot. Garda John O'Brien of Athlone garda station told the inquest they opened the driver's door with a piece of wire. They made the grim discovery of the body of a woman lying curled up in the boot. There was no sign of blood around the car. The subsequent investigation into Philomena's death suggested it was likely she was killed in the driveway of her home.
At the inquest in Mullingar courthouse in 1998, assistant state pathologist Margaret Bolster said she concluded that death was due to haemorrhage and shock, as a result of shotgun wound, followed by the infliction of six stab wounds to the back. She could have survived for 15 to 20 minutes after the wounds were inflicted. The stab wounds would have led to more bleeding and to lung collapse.
She concluded that the shotgun was fired from "quite a range".
The knife had a single cutting edge similar to a kitchen steak knife.
Asked if it was likely she was alive when put in the car boot, Dr Bolster said Philomena Gillane had died "pretty soon" after the shotgun and stab wounds were inflicted.
The investigating gardaí in Ballinasloe looked for a motive. In many such murder cases, the husband undergoes intense scrutiny and so Pat Gillane was brought in for questioning. So too was Bridie Gordon, who was questioned about unlawful possession of a firearm. "I was brought in in the wrong. I was there for three days. Badly treated, I was," she later told the court. Days after Philomena's funeral, Pat Gillane moved out of Beechlawn House and back to the family farm with his brother Kevin. But a newspaper photograph taken of Gillane at his murdered wife's burial was to give a significant twist to the investigation. On 20 May, a homeless man in Dublin called into the Bridewell, insisting the picture of the grieving widower was the same man who approached him and a friend on James's Street the previous January with a chilling request. Christy Bolger and Michael Doyle stated that Gillane asked them to "kill a woman who worked in a hospital". When they asked the man to explain further, he said the woman he wanted killed was "his wife. We asked why, and he said she was threatening to take everything he had." When arrested in June 1995, Gillane dismissed the claim, saying Bolger and Doyle were "only winos from Dublin, they'll do anything for a drink". But their evidence was strong enough to see Gillane brought before the Circuit Criminal Court in September 1996, charged with soliciting the two men to murder his wife.
Nonie Gordon was in the courthouse, the state's first witness. Now very frail, she was still broken-hearted from the loss of her daughter. Just after 11am, as the jury was being sworn in, there was a commotion. Bridie Gordon cried out for a doctor. Her mother Nonie slumped forward in her seat, suffering a fatal heart attack.
Pat Gillane's trial was moved to December, and to the Central Criminal Court in Dublin at the request of his defence lawyer Eamon Leahy who felt the Galway man would get a fairer trial in the capital. The bitterness between the two families had come to a violent head in the November after Philomena's murder. Her two brothers, Martin and Paddy, confronted Pat Gillane and his brother Kevin at their farm in Glenbrack, shouting: "Come out you bastards and bring the gun and knife with you." They were convinced the Gillane brothers had murdered their sister, "throwing her there like a dog". Kevin Gillane was charged with common assault for inflicting a severe stomach wound on Martin Gordon with a slash hook.
During that trial in June 1996, details of one of the most innocent victims of the tragedy also emerged. Martina Riordan, a sister of the Gillanes, gave evidence of caring for John Michael who was barely 10 months old when his mother was murdered. The little boy was initially minded in the Gordon family farmhouse, but then she took on the job of rearing him at her home in Oranmore where she lived with her husband and three children. The Gordon family visits became more and more acrimonious, with Martina Riordan claiming they said they would tell the child when he was older that his father had murdered his mother. After Philomena's first anniversary mass, the Gordon family "forced their way into her family home". They had driven Philomena's car up to her front door, shouting abuse and calling her to come out "and look at the car where your brother put our sister's body". As a result, she contacted a social worker and the child was placed in care with the Western Health Board.
There were to be further repercussions from the unsolved murder investigation. A retired garda was awarded £305,000 compensation. Eamon Melvin from Gort suffered post-traumatic stress and was "living in fear 24 hours a day" from death threats. He believed he would be murdered and had a "death imprint" on him. The High Court heard evidence that the former garda feared what would happen to him and his family when Pat Gillane was released from prison.
Pat Gillane was released in December 2003, having served six of his eight-year sentence, and returned to live in Gort. During his last year, he had been let out on several occasions on day release to help build a community centre in Dublin. Just prior to his release, the Sunday Mirror reported a prison source stating: "He leaves Wheatfield prison in the morning and comes back in the evening. This has been happening for some time in order to prepare him for life on the outside. He has behaved himself inside and is being rewarded by getting a 25% reduction on his sentence, meaning he will be out before Christmas. Mind you, he has no-one to celebrate it with."
The file on Philomena Gillane's murder remains open. In 2005, the gardaí issued a fresh appeal for information. Superintendent Paul Hargadon, who was with Ballinasloe garda station at that time, said, "There are people out there who know what happened and can point the gardaí in the direction of those involved in the murder." By that stage, a fingerprint on the boot of Philomena's car had still not been identified, nor had the identities been established of two people seen in the vicinity of her Caltra home on the last morning she left there to drive to Dublin.
For those who remember it, revisiting the horror of that summer 15 years ago remains too depressing. "I would rather I never heard it mentioned again," says one local, "the reason being that it was so shocking, and such a traumatic time in the west of Ireland. People move on. For the younger generation, those names from May 1993 are not significant to them. The only people who really remain deeply affected are the immediate family."
The one certain witness to that horrific murder is the victim herself. But the name of her killer, or killers, lie with Philomena Gillane in Kilmacduagh cemetery, as silent and still as the ancient tower dominating the lonely landscape.
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