Bad blood in Ballyshannon
The tragic, untold story behind the ‘gift’ that was really a loan
WHEN Jacqueline Keenaghan rang the bell to the front door of Fidelma ‘Della’ and Celine Kerrigan’s humble home in Ballyshannon she must surely have been uncertain as to the welcome she would receive.
After all, it had been 40 years since she had sat down and chatted for any length with the ‘girls’ that she had known in primary school.
Since those innocent, carefree days long ago, tragedy after tragedy had beset the hard-working Kerrigan family.
Jacqueline, meanwhile, was apparently living a charmed life with her architect husband in a spacious dormer bungalow set on its own grounds. But all is never as it seems. Not only had the sisters lost their only brother in a freak fishing accident but the day after their sister’s wedding, grief and sorrow struck once more with the death of their mother at the relatively young age of 54.
And by the time mother of three Jacqueline Keenaghan decided to rekindle an abandoned childhood friendship, yet another tragedy had beset the Kerrigan family.
During a day out with her father in 2002, Della’s car was struck by an outof-control vehicle close to home.
Minutes later, 82-year-old Dan was lying dead, after somehow managing to get himself out of the car. Della was left fighting for her life.
Several months later, the 44-yearold was still recovering and it was only a matter of time before she would receive a massive pay-out to compensate her for the horrendous injuries she sustained at the wheel of her car. However, the minsfortunes that had dogged her life were to take yet another turn.
Today, the Irish Mail on Sunday reveals the extraordinary lengths to which Jacqueline Keenaghan went to get money from her unsuspecting childhood friend.
Once she had inveigled her way into Della’s life, the former legal secretary embarked on a sustained campaign to groom her and reap the financial rewards. Jacqueline – now retrained as a therapist thanks to Della’s money – demanded that her friend pay her a six-figure sum in bank drafts, which to all intents and purposes is regarded as untraceable cash.
This week, Justice Deirdre Murphy at the High Court ruled that the €280,000 Jacqueline and husband Paul Keenaghan had received from Della Kerrigan was not an ‘unsolicited gift’ but a loan given with an unspecified repayment date.
In August 2010, just two weeks after receiving a €750,000 compensation award for injuries sustained in the 2002 horror crash, Della handed over the six-figure sum without hesitation.
By any standards what happened between the pair is extraordinary. But what is not in any doubt is this is a tale of betrayal, breach of trust, and a callous disregard for an unassuming, kind-hearted soul, who, friends believe, was blithely cast aside as soon as she had fulfilled her usefulness.
The two women grew up in the quiet Donegal town of Ballyshannon, which claims to be Ireland’s oldest town and is also the birthplace of legendary guitarist Rory Gallagher.
As neither Jacqueline nor Della are high-flying socialites, most people in the area were unaware of what happened between them until the matter came before the courts in November.
What has since unfolded has reportedly left Jacqueline’s family ‘mortified’, while Della is baffled, hurt and angry as to why she was targeted by someone only too keenly aware of the tragedy and heartbreak that has haunted much of her life.
Jacqueline and her husband John have insisted that the money was a gift. They used some of the €280,000 to retrain as counsellors, educate their now adult children and pay off money owed to Revenue Commissioners and the bank.
Their daughter, Danielle, is a qualified speech therapist and lives in England with her husband. She got married last year in Donegal and her wedding reception was hosted at the Great Northern Hotel in Bundoran.
Meanwhile, the couple’s eldest son, Edward, lives in America where he works as a landscape gardener.
Their second son, Seán, studied aviation engineering at the University of Limerick.
The judge will make a final order on the case later this month. A revenue official has said there could be tax implications for monies deemed to be an interest-free loan.
Both the Keenaghans and Della have refused to comment on the case.
When the MoS called this weekend to the Keenaghans’ large dormer bungalow on the outskirts of Bundoran – from where they run their counselling business – former architect John closed the door without saying a word when asked how the couple planned to repay their former friend.
Their counselling service is registered as a business rather than a company, meaning there are no financial accounts publicly available.
This has led those close to Della – who is single and whose only source of
‘Her injuries were horrific. She nearly died too’
income is social welfare – to fear she might never see all of the money she is owed by the Keenaghans.
A friend revealed: ‘Jacqueline was in the same class in school as Della’s sister Celine. They were pally in primary school but they didn’t pal around after school because Celine came from a big family and, like all her siblings, she had to go home after school to do her chores.
‘Celine left school at 13 to look after her mother and it wasn’t until 40 years later after a car crash that Jacqueline started calling to the house where Della and Celine live.
‘It’s the house that they grew up in and neither of them ever married. Della was driving the car and she used to bring her father out every day for a spin in the car.
‘The pair of them were laughing and chatting when another car crashed into them. Della’s father got out of the car after the crash. He never said a word but died at the scene because his heart was punctured.
‘It took Della a long time to recover. Her injuries were horrific… her face was smashed, her palate was ripped out, she had a punctured lung, as well as two broken arms and one of her feet was mangled.
‘She was in hospital for a month and when she got out, she was housebound for a long time and was in a wheelchair for years.
‘At one stage she went down to six stone, and she has had a lot of operaof
tions since the accident, which happened in November 2002.
‘As soon as Della was able to receive visitors in the house, Jacqueline started calling even though Della and her sister Celine hadn’t heard from her in 40 years.
‘She was in the house constantly… the women couldn’t get rid of her. As well as calling to the house she would take Della to crochet and knitting classes.
‘Jacqueline would be crying, telling her that her husband John was owed money by people since 2007. John was an architect and he ran his business from an office in their home.
‘Della would not have finished secondary school. She would have gone to the local tech to do her group cert and the only job she ever had was working as a finisher in a local pottery place.
‘She spent most of her adult life looking after her father. She thought the world of him. When he died, she found it hard to continue on and I know there were times when she didn’t want to live.
‘Even though the accident happened in 2002, Della did not get any compensation until eight years later. She only had the money two weeks when Jacqueline Keenaghan demanded two bank drafts – she insisted she wanted bank drafts. Everyone knows that if money is paid in a bank draft it is very hard to trace.
‘Jacqueline promised to pay back every penny, but once she got the money she stopped calling to the house and she hadn’t time to talk to Della and Celine. She would meet them but would say she had assignments to do because she was studying in Limerick.
‘Della waited four years before asking for her money back. She was very patient. She eventually asked to go out to see Jacqueline and her husband in their house.
‘Jacqueline told Della then that they had no money, that they had nothing, but that they won’t fall out over it.
‘They never acknowledged that they had got the money and they never said thank you to Della for the money. It seems that they wanted to keep it a secret and on a need-to-know basis.’
The accident that claimed the life of Della’s beloved father and left her fighting for her life was only one in a long line of tragedies that have beset the Kerrigan family.
Della and her four sisters – Mary, Christine, Margaret and Celine – grew up with their brother Danny in a humble two-storey house on a local authority estate in Ballyshannon.
Their father Dan was a baker by trade but spent the latter part of his working life as a labourer with the ESB. Their mother Josephine, like many women of her generation, was a stay-at-home mother.
However, their unremarkable lives changed forever on an August day in 1974.
Della’s brother Danny drowned after being swept from a cliff edge in Bundoran by a freak wave. The army private was just 26 years old, and his wife was just one month away from giving birth to a muchlonged-for child after their first born did not survive.
Just 15 months later, Della’s mother Josephine died – a day after Margaret got married.
And even though the mother of six had been ill with cancer, her family were left in no doubt that the 54-year-old died of a broken heart after losing her only son.
For many years, Dan was plagued with ill health and Della gave up her job at the local pottery factory so she could devote herself to nursing her father back to good health.
And she succeeded. But just as he was beginning to enjoy life once again tragedy struck and Dan died in the tragic car crash that almost claimed the life of his daughter as well.
Six years after the crash, Dan’s son-in-law PJ Branley and the man who had identified his body in 2002, were killed in a similar car crash that also claimed the life of his passenger and the driver of the other car.
Tragedy struck again in 2016 when Della’s sister Mary dropped dead at her home, while reading a letter from a hospital telling her that, despite ongoing health issues, her life was not in imminent danger.
A local said: ‘Jacqueline Keenaghan would have known all this, so people are astonished that she could have done this to Della.
‘You would see Jacqueline and her husband at Mass and they would be regarded as conservative people. They would go to community events but, outside of that, you wouldn’t be seeing them out and about enjoying the high life.
‘Jacqueline comes from a big family and they are mortified about what has happened.
‘How could she and her husband do this, to someone like Della, who leads a simple, quiet life?’
‘How could somebody do this to Della?’