A songwriter claimed yesterday that composer Ronan Hardiman had plagiarised part of a melody he wrote 10 years ago.
Allan Downey, of Lakeside Caravan Park, Mountshannon, Co Clare, alleged in Dublin Circuit Civil Court that Mr Hardiman had used a sequence of six notes from his guitar solo piece, Waitin' for the Quare One, in the theme tune Mr Hardiman wrote for Today with Pat Kenny.
The evidence opened with Mr Downey's guitar piece being played on tape to the court and "singing judge" Judge Liam Devally.
This was followed by a CD of the Kenny programme's theme music.
Mr Downey said he was hitch-hiking from Westport to Leenane in 1996 when Ms Aine Hennessy stopped and gave him a lift in her car. When she dropped him off he had given her a copy of his tape, Waitin' for the Quare One.
Mr Downey said he never got it back but recognised part of his music in the Today with Pat Kenny radio show. He believed Ms Hennessy had given the tape to Mr Hardiman.
Ms Hennessy, a freelance worker with Tyrone Productions, told the court she had never heard of Mr Hardiman before the court proceedings, did not know him, had never seen him before he had been pointed out to her yesterday, had never spoken to him, worked with him, or passed a tape of any kind to him.
Counsel for Mr Hardiman was granted a direction on the basis Mr Downey had failed to produce a scintilla of evidence of the tape ever having come into Mr Hardiman's possession or of his ever even having heard it.
Judge Devally a former nationally acclaimed singer, told Mr Downey the six-note sequence he complained of having been plagiarised was almost a musical cliche. He lilted an example. He rejected the claim on the grounds Mr Downey had failed to produce any evidence to sustain it.