‘He’d cut you up,’ said Patricia of her killer
Patricia O’Connor made her dislike for her daughter’s partner clear. But she was afraid of him – and Kieran Greene was to take horrif ic revenge on her at the Rathfarnham home they shared
The dismembered remains of Patricia O’Connor were found scattered in the Wicklow mountains. In court hearings related to her murder, dismemberment and the attempts to cover up her killing, she was portrayed as a domineering figure who had exerted a tight control over her family. In an exclusive extract from his new book, Frank Greaney tells of a hard-working woman who was full of life and love.
PATRICIA Cooke was born in Windgap, Co. Kilkenny, on March 19, 1956. In 1972, when she was 16, Patricia moved to Dublin for work. Some of her older siblings were already living there. Back then, most young people left Windgap for ‘The Big Smoke’ as soon as they were old enough to get a proper job.
Patricia’s first job in Dublin was as a cleaner in a hotel just off Grafton Street. Not long afterwards, she met her future husband, Augustine O’Connor, on a night out at the Crystal Ballroom on South Anne Street. Patricia and Augustine’s love also blossomed underneath the chandelier at the Crystal Ballroom. He was 10 years older than her, but they had an instant connection. Patricia became pregnant not long afterwards, and they got married Augustine, or Gus for short, was a hard worker too. He left school when he was 14 and became a bike mechanic for the Raleigh Bicycle Company.
Gus was made redundant in his 40s and then worked as a porter in various Dublin hotels. In later years, he took up a job at the Department of Transport, where he remained until he retired, aged 68.
Their life together started out in a dingy, detached house on Dorset Street. The walls were so damp, you couldn’t even hang wallpaper on them.
Their first child, Richard, was born in May 1973. The house was no longer fit for purpose, but they were on the council
‘Patricia found love again – in the arms of a woman’
housing list, and were eventually offered
a four-bedroom terraced house in Rathfarnham: 66 Mountain View Park.
Just before Christmas 1978, Patricia and Gus welcomed a second child into their lives, a little sister for Richard. Louise had red hair, just like her mother. When they were small, Patricia used to take them down to Kilkenny to visit her family during the summer holidays.
She would arrive in Windgap weighed down with bags of clothes for whoever wanted them. Her kids loved it there. They would spend all day running around and playing outside in the fresh air with their country cousins. The door of 66 Mountain View Park was always open, and Patricia welcomed her younger siblings up to Dublin every year during summer holidays.
Over time, Patricia and Gus started to drift apart. The age gap between them seemed to get wider and wider as the years went by. Patricia was adventurous and full of life, while he was a placid, contented man. She affectionately referred to him as ‘the auld fella’.
Gus was devastated when they broke up. Patricia stayed in the family home for a time afterwards, but in her mind the marital flame had gone out and she wasn’t interested in reigniting it. She’d find love again and hoped Gus would too.
In 1987, Patricia joined the catering department at Beaumont Hospital, where she saw out the rest of her working days. She made friends for life there. The shifts were long and hard, but she used to come into work singing and whistling every day. She didn’t have much of a back catalogue: Always Look On The Bright Side of Life was her go-to, much to the annoyance of some of the chefs. That said, it didn’t take long to win them over. Her good mood was infectious. She gave everyone a lift, especially when it was busy around mealtimes.
Everyone at Beaumont Hospital adored Patricia. All the doctors and nurses knew her by name, and she took a real shine to one junior doctor in particular. Everyone did. He always had time for a chat, and, like Patricia, he knew everyone’s name, and he was genuinely interested in what was going on in people’s lives. There was a real buzz about him when he walked into the room. People were drawn to him. He was tall, dark and handsome with a friendly, soft-spoken manner.
Patricia used to tell everyone he was in the wrong job.
‘He’s a born politician,’ she’d say. She used to love watching him working his way down the wards. He was only in training, but everyone knew he’d do well.
‘Howya, Leo!’ Patricia shouted at him one day as he passed by. ‘It’s Dr Varadkar,’ he replied with a playful grin. ‘Ah, sure I can’t pronounce that,’ she quipped back. They both laughed.
After splitting up with Gus, Patricia did find love again, this time in the arms of a woman. They met at work and began seeing each other a few years after Patricia started in Beaumont. She often told her friends that she wasn’t interested in women before Jane (not her real name) came into her life, and she used to joke that she turned her gay.
Being gay in Ireland in the 1980s wasn’t easy. Sexual activity between two men, even in the privacy of their own home, was illegal, while lesbian sex wasn’t even recognised
under Irish law.
In the early 1980s, gay men would meet on Saturday afternoons in a pub just off Grafton Street. It was a secret society and a place of refuge for those who just wanted to socialise in peace.
That said, it was also an exciting time for the gay community. The country’s first ever Gay Pride festival was held in Dublin in March 1983, the same year Patricia moved out of Mountain View Park.
While many gay people at the time hid their true sexual identity, Patricia was very open about hers. She was a private person, but she was happy for people to know about her new relationship. Inevitably, people at work started talking about it. She grew tired of the hushed whispers and sideways glances when she walked into the room, so she just announced one day that she preferred women, and that was that. ‘This is life,’ she said to the girls. ‘This is what it’s all about. Sure, look it, I’m not hurting anyone.’
After a while, the two women moved into a rented apartment in Rathmines. Life was good and they were very happy together. Until another woman, whom they both worked with at the hospital, arrived on the scene. She used to join them for dinner and would visit them in their apartment. She started spending more and more time with the couple and an intimate relationship eventually developed between her and Jane.
Patricia was heartbroken. Word quickly spread through the hospital. She was tough, but the break-up floored her. Seeing her ex with her new partner at work every day made it even more difficult for her. They were now living together, too, and Patricia was on her own in the flat in Rathmines. After the breakup, she couldn’t afford to pay full rent and bills for the apartment in Rathmines on top of the mortgage she was still paying off for the house in Rathfarnham, so she soon found herself with no choice but to return to 66 Mountain View Park.
As she got older, she just wanted to focus on her family. Despite living away from the house for years, she had maintained a relationship with her kids, Richard in particular. The relationship between Patricia and Gus was amicable after the separation, which made things easier for everyone.
Two years after Patricia’s return to the house, Louise started seeing a young man called Keith Johnston. She was 17 at the time. Keith, who was two years older than her, grew up in a housing estate in nearby Tallaght. Like Louise, he wasn’t very academic, and he also had left school at a young age. He was 15 when he dropped out.
Keith was a hard worker and could turn his hand to any odd job, but he was a particularly skilled tiler, so he pursued that as a trade until a work accident derailed his training. His life was back on track by the time he met Louise. She became pregnant the following year and Stephanie was born in 1997. The arrival of a baby into the house brought great joy but also heaped even more pressure on her parents’ already fractured relationship.
It was a stressful time. Louise was still not much more than a child herself and Patricia had her work cut out for her between looking after the baby and holding down a demanding full-time job. To make matters worse, it wasn’t long before a second came along. It wasn’t Keith’s child, but he treated her as if she were his own flesh and blood.
Patricia and Gus often spoke about doing up the house when the kids had flown the nest, but their plans for the future were put on hold while they helped Louise raise her children. Richard moved out in 2005, but his younger sister showed no signs of following suit. In fact, she moved Keith in around the same time he left. One out, one in.
Patricia slept in one of the double bedrooms upstairs. She had a lock installed to try to maintain some privacy in the busy house. Gus had his own room and the other two rooms were shared between Louise, her children and Keith.
Patricia’s return had added to an already overcrowded situation, but she didn’t care. Why should she? It was her house. If they didn’t like it, they could move out. In fact, Keith did move out that year, when he and Louise broke up.
It didn’t take long for her to meet someone else, and that someone else soon took Keith’s place in the house too. One out, one in.
Kieran Greene was 22 years old when he met Louise. She was six years older than him and held the title of his first-ever girlfriend. He also grew up in Tallaght, less than 10km from Rathfarnham.
Patricia took an immediate dislike to him.
There was just something about him. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she thought he was bad news, and a mother’s intuition is rarely wrong. Patricia’s main concern was for her grandchildren. She never stopped talking about them at work. They came into the conversation every single day, especially Stephanie, whom Patricia took everywhere with her.
She didn’t think Kieran was giving the children a good life, so she made sure they had enough and were never left wanting.
She used to leave her bank card on the kitchen table when she went to work so that Kieran and Louise could buy groceries for the kids. She didn’t care about Kieran, and Louise was old enough to look after herself. Her priority was to make sure her grandchildren were comfortable and had food in their bellies.
Towards the end of her time at Beaumont Hospital, she started doing longer shifts, from 7.30am to 7.30pm.
As the only breadwinner in the house, she needed the extra money. She also didn’t want to be at home, so she was happy to stay on. Kieran was causing all sorts of problems in the house. She used to tell the girls at work that he was giving Louise a ‘pig’s life’. She desperately wanted him out of the house, but she couldn’t put her ‘young one’ and grandkids out on the street. She didn’t know what to do. Gus didn’t get involved. If anything, he took Louise and Kieran’s side, so she was outnumbered.
Patricia was a strong woman. Nothing fazed her. Her friends were amazed by how she bounced back after her break-up with Jane. She took whatever came her way in her stride after that. If anything, it made her even stronger than before.
But the girls noticed a change in her mood when it came to Kieran. He had really got under her skin. She wasn’t afraid of anyone – if she had a problem with someone, she would say it straight out to their face – but she was afraid of Kieran. One day, she told one of the girls at work that he was the type of person you wouldn’t mess with. ‘He’d cut you up,’ she said.
Patricia didn’t think Kieran was a good father. She often told him she’d come back and haunt him if he ever did anything to her grandkids. She really didn’t like having him around the house. She wanted him out and made no bones about it.
She didn’t trust him and often told him he shouldn’t be bringing up his family in her house, but Louise stood up for him and would tell her mother that he was entitled to be there as the father of her kids. Gus was no use. Her hands were tied. It was a horrible situation.
She often referred to Louise as a ‘stupid bitch’ for putting up with Kieran. Patricia knew from the start there was ‘big trouble’ there, and she just couldn’t understand why her daughter was so blind to it all.
Despite everything, she worried about her too. She felt so helpless. Her sisters would often talk about coming up for a visit, but she’d put them off. She didn’t want them to see what was going on.
Richard would have helped her – he often told Louise to find her own place – but Patricia was a proud lady and didn’t want her son to know the full extent of what was going on in the house. She didn’t want to burden anyone with her problems. She’d find a way. She always did.
‘Kieran had really got under Patricia’s skin’
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