Make your peace – and ignore the wives

Date Published: 24-May-2007

Two brothers who have not spoken to each other in over twenty years and whose wives have done nothing to bring about a reconciliation, were warned by a Circuit Court Judge to learn to stand on their own two feet, make peace with each other in spite of their wives and not draw the next generation – their children – into the family dispute.

Judge Raymond Groarke told the men’s wives they were a disgrace when they refused to shake hands with each other at Galway Circuit Criminal Court last week.

Moments earlier the brothers did agree to shake hands in court in a bid to end twenty years of acrimony on the invitation of Judge Groarke but he observed one would have seen warmer handshakes in the Arctic.

The dramatic scenes were witnessed during a case involving 19 years old Bertie Folan, of Teach Mór, Leitir Mullen, who pleaded guilty to assaulting his uncle, Tomás O Cualain (Folan) at Leitir Mór, on December 27, 2005.

The court heard that Bertie Folan had never spoken to his uncle in his life and that the row between the teenager’s father, Michael Folan, and his uncle, Tomás Folan, had occurred before he was even born.

Garda John Curran of Leitir Mór gave evidence that the ongoing family dispute had taken up a lot of Garda time over the years. He said………………