‘I didn’t know he was dead. I was on floor with a pain in my chest’

Since the day she suffered a heart attack as her husband of 27 years bled to death outside their backdoor after he was gunned down, there has been one thing that kept Margaret Madden going — the fight for justice.

It has been the steel behind the long, legal battle which saw the mother-of-three firstly in the Special Criminal Court for the criminal trial of the men involved in her husband’s death. Yesterday in the High Court she secured more than €750,000 damages against the four men involved in her husband’s gunning down 13 years ago.

She might have made legal history, but Mrs Madden was only worried that she had done everything possible for the memory of her husband, Fás employee and part-time farmer, Terence Madden.

In tears as she walked away from court she quietly said: “We feel we have done something for Terry to make up for what happened to him. We have very fond memories. He was a very nice person, a very a nice person.”

Thanking all those who had encouraged the family on the way, Mrs Madden said she was glad they had stuck with the legal battle.

Earlier, her solicitor John Kelly read a statement on behalf of the Madden family.

“It took a lot of courage for the Madden family to bring this case. The judgment is due vindication of and recognition of their courage and an acknowledgement of the ongoing pain they suffer on a daily basis,” he said.

In the witness box, Mrs Madden had given evidence of the morning her husband was killed just feet from their back door.

“My husband was lying on the ground. I thought he had had a heart attack, but when I turned him over and I saw blood I realised there was something terribly wrong,” she said.

She said she called the doctor and gardaí, and was beginning to black out herself.

“I did not realise he was dead. I was lying on the floor with a terrible pain in my chest.”

Mrs Madden who was rushed to hospital suffering from a heart attack, said she had to plead with doctors to let her attend her husband’s funeral.

“The fact that my husband was murdered is dreadful. This sort of thing does not happen to ordinary people,” she told Ms Justice Mary Irvine.

Returning to her Sligo home, Mrs Madden knows there may be further fights, as her legal team move in on the land and property owned by the four men, but that battle is for another day.

What started with one man’s petty grudge about the Madden bed and breakfast business, ended up in a good man being gunned down, bringing long-term grief to an ordinary Irish family and a long fight for justice for Margaret Madden, an extraordinary woman.

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