Traveller widow gets €20k for ‘bringing body back in van’ libel

A judge has awarded a grieving Traveller widow and her two brothers €30,000 in libel damages over a newspaper story which claimed efforts were made to bring home, from Germany, the woman’s late husband’s remains in the back of a van.

At Ennis Circuit Court yesterday, Judge James O’Donohoe awarded €20,000 in libel damages to Kathleen Hegarty, widow of the late Patrick Hegarty, 37, and €5,000 each to her brothers, James and Dan Quilligan.

The three brought libel actions against the Sunday World Ltd, concerning an article on May 1, 2011, accompanied by a headline: “Dead Man’s Body Sparked German Traveller Riot” with a sub-heading “Rathkealers try to transport deceased pal back home after boozing tragedy’.

The article went on to say that ‘Travellers in a riotous boozing session in Germany got into a standoff with police after they tried to drive a body back to Ireland in a van”. The story dealt with events in Cologne following the sudden death of Mr Hegarty who died of a heart attack on April 24, 2011.

The report claimed an effort had been made to bring the body home in the back of a van.

However, Mr Hegarty’s body had been flown home from Frankfurt to Dublin after arrangements were made through a Limerick undertaker, Cross’s, for the body’s repatriation.

In the witness box, Ms Hegarty said: “I knew my husband would have a respectable, high-class funeral. It was one of the biggest funerals in Rathkeale and there wasn’t a glass broke.”

She had felt “ashamed, disgraced, angered” when the article had been read out to her.

“My husband was still in Cross’s at the time. I felt low in myself and my husband, that people would think that of us.”

None of the plaintiffs were named in the article, though Ms Hegarty was referred to in one paragraph in the article written by the journalist Eamon Dillon, who has written two books about Travellers.

It read: “According to the custom of the conservative Rathkealers, the dead man’s 27-year-old widow would be expected to return to live with her parents because she has no children and would not be expected to marry again.”

Ms Hegarty, now 33, accepted this to be the case, but maintained that the contents and nature of the article defamed her and her family in relation to the repatriation of the remains which had been done in accordance with the law.

Ms Hegarty said: “I’m a widow for the rest of my life in Rathkeale because it’s against my tradition to do anything else.”

The judge said the core issue was whether the words, which referred to Travellers bringing a body home, tended to injure a person’s reputation in the eyes of reasonable members of society.

He said: “The words were clearly referable to the widow and in the unusual circumstances and context of Travellers’ culture/tradition, they would be injurious to her good name in that community, that is, that she being very close family had neglected in her duty to her late husband”.

Her solicitor Dan O’Gorman said after the ruling: “Kathleen Hegarty is very pleased with the judge’s decision today. She is very satisfied that the good name of her family and the reputation of her late husband has been preserved.”