A man who shot his neighbours dead near Mullingar two years ago has been given two life sentences for murder.
Seamus Dunne shot a husband and wife, Mr Vincent and Mrs Mary Cully, twice in the back after a dispute over pebbledash stones.
On his arrest he broke down and told gardai he "flipped" after he had created a siege mentality out of a series of minor disputes.
In the Central Criminal Court in Dublin, Dunne (43) received the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment from Mr Justice O'Sullivan after he changed his plea from not guilty to guilty of the double murder.
Imposing the sentences, which are to run concurrently, Mr Justice O'Sullivan said the circumstances of the case were "extraordinarily tragic".
He told Dunne: "The Cully family have suffered and will continue to suffer, as indeed will you suffer, and your family."
Earlier Dunne had pleaded not guilty. A jury of eight men and four women had been sworn in to hear the case.
But as they waited in the jury room counsel for Dunne, Mr Paul McDermott SC, requested a 10-minute adjournment.
Afterwards Dunne was re-arraigned. He pleaded guilty to the murder of Vincent Cully (59) and Mary Cully (54), the parents of five children, outside their home in Turin, otherwise known as Tevrin, eight miles east of Mullingar in Co Westmeath, on November 8th, 1997.
Mr Gerard Clarke SC, prosecuting, said that in light of this a nolle prosequi was being entered on the third count of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.
Mr McDermott then told the judge that since the sentence was mandatory, it was questionable how useful an exposition of the facts of the case would be.
Mr Clarke pointed out that another High Court judge, Mr Justice Carney, had long expressed the view that the citizens of Ireland were entitled to know in what circumstances one of their number, and in this case two, had been murdered.
Mr Justice O'Sullivan acknowledged Mr McDermott's argument but said he would nevertheless hear Garda evidence.
Det Sgt Gerry Nohilly told the court that Dunne made a series of complaints about the Cully family to local gardai between 1991 and 1996. One was about hedges and trees which the Cullys had replaced on their land. Dunne complained about their being cut down. Another concerned a discharge of effluent from one of the Cullys' fields.
That matter had been put right by Vincent Cully after Dunne had raised it, Det Sgt Nohilly said.
There were ongoing complaints to the local Garda station up to 1996, but in the 12 months or so before the incident there had been "relative calm".
The last complaint was at Hallowe'en 1996, when Dunne complained about the noise of bangers and crackers which the Cully family were using.
On the date of the murders, Saturday, November 8th, a number of workmen were finishing off some pebbledashing on the front of the Cullys' house. At 14:09 p.m. Seamus Dunne phoned Mulligar Garda station to complain that workmen were throwing pebbledash at his house.
A garda arrived at 2:30 p.m. and spoke to both sides. He left at 2:45 p.m. thinking the matter had been sorted out.
At 3:10 p.m. Dunne came out of his house wearing an ammunition belt with 20 cartridges on it, and carrying a double-barrelled shotgun.
He walked the short distance to the Cullys' house, raised the shotgun to his shoulder, pointed it at Vincent Cully, and shot the first barrel into his right arm.
Mr Cully fell to the ground but got up again, and was making his way to his house when Dunne shot him again, this time in the back.
He then reloaded the gun with two cartridges and shot Mary Cully twice in the back from a distance of between 20 and 50 feet.
"Both died within a matter of minutes," Det Sgt Nohilly said.
Dunne reloaded his shotgun and pointed it at one of the workmen whom he had earlier accused of throwing pebbledash at his house.
By this time Dunne's wife had come out of the house and intervened to stop him. He went back into his house and, when gardai arrived at the scene, he came out with his hands up.
Det Sgt Nohilly told Mr McDermott, defending, that Dunne was "very forthcoming after he was arrested".
He broke down in a Garda patrol car on his way to the Garda station and expressed some shock and "great sorrow and regret over what had happened".
He told gardai: "I flipped, I don't know what happened."
The detective agreed that Dunne had perceived grievances with the Cully family which he said were playing on his mind in the course of that day.
He agreed that there was a suggestion that there had been some jeering and throwing of stones in the course of the Saturday.
He also agreed that some pebbles were found by gardai near Dunne's front door and at the side of his house.
In addition, just before the shooting, words had been exchanged between Dunne and Vincent Cully in relation to a pillar, Det Sgt Norhilly said, and Dunne said this had precipitated the incident.
Dunne had "a sense of frustration and almost of being under siege which reads disproportionately to what had been going on," the detective agreed.
To other people, he said, the incidents in question would not have appeared to be so big, but they seemed to have played on Dunne's mind in a disproportionate way.
He believed himself to be "under siege", such was his distortion of the events in question.
In a statement he told gardai: "I did not want any of this to happen, I was minding my own business. I have two children and a wife that I adore."
But, he told them, "I could not allow the abuse to continue. When you have things like that playing on your mind for so long, it just broke me down."
The court heard that Dunne's wife is pregnant with their third child.
In a report submitted to the judge Dr Charles Smith, director of the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, Dublin, said that Dunne clearly did not belong to either the psychopathic or sociopathic personality groups.
He continued that, by way of trying to explain, but not excuse what happened, "when people are enraged they don't see red necessarily, but they do get distorted perceptions alongside distorted responses."
Dunne's two life sentences are to run concurrently.