A 64-year-old mother whose crowing rooster angered a neighbour and led to a High Court action last year, was back in court yesterday. Mrs Moira Gallagher, from Achill Island, Co Mayo, appeared at the local court on charges of harassing the same neighbour, Mr Peter Masterson, by directing constant loud music at his house and throwing dog droppings on his driveway.
Mrs Gallagher went to jail for three weeks in 1996 because of her refusal to get rid of a noisy rooster and to build a boundary wall with her neighbour.
The wall has now been built and the rooster is dead, but the problems continue. Judge Dan Shields was told by Mr Masterson at Achill Court that life was a misery for his family because of constant music from Gallagher's home. Mr Masterson said he had seen the defendant throwing dog droppings on the driveway to his B & B on numerous occasions.
Garda Tony McCabe told the court that Gallagher had two radios tuned to different stations and at near full volume, as well as a television. He said he mounted surveillance on different dates to determine where the dog droppings - shovelfuls of them at a time - were coming from but failed to detect anybody.
Mr Aidan Crowley, representing Gallagher, said she was an elderly person with a hearing defect who lived on her own and was entitled to have the radio on for company.
Judge Dan Shields fined Gallagher £200 for harassing Mr Masterson on June 3rd by playing excessively loud music, but he dismissed the dog-droppings charges due to a lack of evidence.