They met in O'Donoghue's pub in the seaside village of Fanore, Co Clare. It was September 1990 and they were both at the nearby Lisdoonvarna matchmaking festival. He had seen her once before, in a bar.
Pat Gillane and Philomena Gordon danced together in Fanore. He was 28. She was 10 years older, and involved with another man. He gave her his sister's phone number written on the back of a matchbox - he did not have a phone. She rang him a few times the following week. They met about a month later at a Country and Western night in Kiltormer, Co Galway.
Three years later Philomena, who was about five months pregnant, married Pat at Knock, Co Mayo. She wore white. He wore a morning suit and a purple velvet bow tie. Sometime on the wedding day guests saw Gillane having a heated row with his new sister-inlaw, Bridie.
In May 1994 Philomena was found in the boot of her car shot in the back and stabbed six times with a kitchen knife. She was seven months pregnant with her second child. Pat Gillane gave a tearful television interview. Less than 10 days later he was arrested for questioning about her murder.
Gillane probably looked like a good catch that night in Fanore. One of two brothers who had just inherited the family farm near Gort, he was a natty dresser with a good line in chat. "He always regarded himself as a lady-killer. He always believed he was totally attractive to women," a Garda source said.
It was difficult to imagine it of the fat, ruddy-cheeked man who sat with a blank face on a hard court bench for his six-day trial. Pat Gillane was the youngest of seven children, with five sisters and a brother. At Gort National School they described him as an average student, who was inclined to be nervous.
He worked on the family's 80acre farm, spent two years as a lorry-driver and worked part-time for a coal merchant. His father died in 1980 when Gillane was still a teenager.
His mother died in 1990, five months before he met Philomena at Lisdoonvarna. After his mother's death the farm was divided equally between Pat and his brother Kevin.
Gillane met his girlfriend's older sister, Bridie, sometime in 1992 when he came to the family home in the village of Caltra near Ballina, Co Mayo, to take Philomena to a wedding. Sometime after that Gillane started a relationship with Bridie.
Before he married Philomena he took Bridie to the Rose of Tralee festival. Five months after he was married he took Bridie on another weekend trip back to the matchmaking festival in Lisdoonvarna where he had met his wife.
At his trial a garda said Gillane had said his mother-in-law, Nonie Gordon, was aware that Gillane was sleeping with both sisters.
"I didn't want to do it to my sister," Bridie said in evidence. She had the "misfortune" of having had a relationship with Gillane. "He kept forcing it on me. He kept pestering me to go out with him."
The Gillane couple lived in the family home in Caltra with Nonie, Bridie and her brother, Paddy. "I had no say. It shouldn't have been," Bridie said when asked about the living arrangements. The house, a large farmhouse isolated from neighbours, had no running water at the time and no telephone.
According to gardai, marriage did not appear to suit Pat Gillane. At times he took to his bed and stayed there for days, suffering from bouts of depression. He refused to work and drank heavily.
Christmas 1993 was not a happy one in the household. Arriving home drunk and aggressive, Gillane told his wife about his affair with her sister. The two women fought.
Around the same time Philomena walked into a pub in Mountbellew, Co Galway, where Bridie worked and hit her husband when he refused to go home. She threatened to take him for every penny he had. The day before Christmas Eve Pat Gillane admitted himself to St Bridget's Psychiatric Hospital in Ballinasloe for treatment. He had tried to strangle his wife. He discharged himself against medical advice.
He tried to strangle her again at the new house they were building on his family land near Gort in February 1994, and admitted himself to St Bridget's again.
Three months later Philomena Gillane was dumped, probably still breathing, in the boot of her own car. She had left the house early on Wednesday morning. Bridie heard her go. Her mother said goodbye. Nonie Gordon, and at least three neighbours, heard a shot that morning. Two men seen outside the Gordon house early on the morning of Wednesday, May 11th, are suspects in the murder. Gardai have spent two years on the investigation, with up to 60 officers involved at times. There is a single fingerprint from the rearview mirror of the car in which her body was found. No murder weapons have been found. The file is still open on Philomena Gillane's murder.