A MAN who said he spent “hundreds of thousands” moving into his retirement home ended up living beside a dog farm, he told Donegal District Court yesterday.
Thomas Hegarty (61) said that at one stage, up to 22 dogs were running around and fouling his property. Mr Hegarty denied threatening to burn the home of his neighbour, Kieran Gambles, at Fintra, Killybegs, Co Donegal.
He was accused of threatening to damage Mr Gambles’s home and of breaching the peace with abusive behaviour.
Mr Gambles, a chef, said that at that time he had six dogs – springers, spaniels and Labrador – and when he returned home one night Mr Hegarty shouted abusively over the fence. “He said, ‘I hate you, everybody hates you. I want you out of your house’.”
Later, when he took dogs for a walk on land behind his house, Mr Hegarty was waiting for him and said he lost the sale of his house because of the dogs next door. “He called me a bastard and said I had three weeks to get rid of the dogs or he would burn me out.”
Mr Gambles said that another time, Ms Hegarty accused him of negligence and the ISPCA was called in, but ISPCA inspector Kevin McGinley found there were no problems.
He admitted at one stage he had five adult dogs and eight pups outside and a number of smaller pups in a kennel. He also admitted he did not have planning permission for the kennels but they were not full-time constructions. “We breed for our own needs and we sell the excess puppies.”
Mr Hegarty told the court: “I retired to a great place in the country. I didn’t spend hundreds of thousands of pounds to live beside a dog farm.”
Judge Kevin Kilrane accepted that dogs could be a nuisance and their barking could be extremely environmentally unfriendly, but Mr Hegarty had legal avenues open to him, such as going through the law over planning matters and noise pollution.
Having been given an assurance from Mr Hegarty that he would refrain from engaging in threatening or public order behaviour, the judge struck out the proceedings.