Nothing about Brian O’Donnell’s confident demeanour suggested he was the common-or-garden subject of a trespass order. He took his seat in the barristers’ bench a minute after Mr Justice Brian McGovern had taken his, removed his coat and apologised urbanely for his tardiness.
Then, within minutes, he was demanding that the judge withdraw from the case. While Blake, his solicitor son seated in the public gallery with his siblings, hurried up and down with scribbled notes for him, the father accused the judge of having a “relationship” of some kind with the plaintiffs.
"My wife never sued Kavanagh Fennell [the receivers involved in this case]," responded the judge. "Well, it was in the newspaper," said O'Donnell (who had apparently stumbled across such a report in The Irish Times, written by Mary Carolan, although he claimed he never reads the press).
Court No 1 was then treated to the spectacle of a judge effectively being cross-examined in his own court, obliged to explain, inter alia, that he and his wife had no outstanding mortgages with Bank of Ireland.
Meanwhile, Blake had settled finally into the solicitors’ side of the bench, whispering constantly and passing notes, while his father insisted that he and his wife – currently occupying the mansion known as Gorse Hill – had never before been involved in proceedings against Gorse Hill and so demanded the right to be heard separately.
Slew of complaints
He had a slew of complaints, mainly on points exceedingly familiar to all who had been involved in the case against his children – but they were “separate people”, he said, whose legal team had never invited him to discuss the case.
He wanted more time to consider his case, he said, and he wanted to cross-examine the receiver and a named bank executive, "famously known as The Sniper", upon which Cian Ferriter SC for the bank, leaped up amid titters around the court, to defend the "sniper's" good name.
Meanwhile, Jerry Beades from the New Land League – described by O'Donnell as a "friend" – was in the gallery to hear Ferriter call O'Donnell "in truth, a Walter Mitty". The couple had flown in last weekend from their "permanent home" in England "to take up occupation . . . in a tactical manoeuvre", said Ferriter.
And now Brian O’Donnell was “perched up in his tower in the castle behind the walls, sending out his Gallowglass – this so-called, self-styled Land League . . .” to spread the word. He read a line from the league’s charter, which refers to “a corrupt judicial and court system”.
“These,” he said, looking straight at the judge, “are the friends Mr O’Donnell has brought in to assist his cause.”
At one point, Mr Justice McGovern made an effort to posit the Gorse Hill case where ordinary homeowners could understand it. “If I own my house and I have a mortgage, I have a right of residence – but if I default, I may have a receiver put in.”
"But in this case the company is the person," replied O'Donnell, about a property he had earlier referred to as "in effect, a family home".
That line of argument soon lost its charm for members of the public.
By 4pm, few were there to witness Brian O’Donnell leave the court, reprieved for another day.
“The O’Donnells are very simple people for people that have had such wealth,” said Mr Beades outside court. “They weren’t a helicopter jet style, they lived a very very simple life, and that’s what my comment was in the context of, that it wasn’t palatial.
“It’s a substantial property in Killiney, and as somebody in the construction sector, when I would speak of a property a lot of these homes nowadays have sophisticated hi-fis and tvs and internet and everything else. It’s a very bog standard house, and that’s what my comment was last night”
