Report Paul Murphy

A retired Garda Chief Superintendent has this weekend spoken about the Lord Henry Mountcharles he knew during a professional relationship that spanned several decades, describing him as “an absolute gentleman, always great to deal with, a very professional man”. The relationship between Michael Finnegan and Mountcharles took them through the good days when Slane village took on a fantastic and exuberant air as 80,000 music fans poured in for concerts by some of the biggest names in show business to more difficult days when a riot almost ended in tragedy when a mob attacked the local Garda station (1984), the killing of Slane gamekeeper Timothy Kidman (1989) and a fire which gutted Slane Castle (1991). Of all these incidents the killing of Kidman took the biggest toll on Mountcharles and his family and they were bereft at the death of a man who was not only an employee but regarded as part of the Slane Castle family, Mr Finnegan said. In a wide ranging interview with Meath Live the former chief superintendent spoke about the highs and lows of Mountcharles’ life as a proud Irishman and an outstanding concert promoter who put the tiny Co Meath village on the map. (Above Michael Finnegan and Henry Mount Charles oversee a forthcoming concert pic as supplied)

The Riot July 1984
Henry Mountcharles and concert promoter Jim Aiken had gone to Dublin Airport to collect singer Bob Dylan. Although communications were more difficult in those days (no mobile phones) word reached them that a riot had broken out in a packed Slane village. The news was accompanied by a false rumour that a person had died in the violence. “Henry said that if someone was dead as a result of the riot, there would be no concert”, Michael Finnegan said. There was one outstanding reason for the riot, he said, there weren’t enough Gardai there but also because the concerts were held on a Sunday, leaving people to arrive in the village from Thursday, but especially on the Friday and Saturday, “drinking themselves into oblivion and then a smallish group, maybe 50 or 60 decided they couldn’t drink anymore and started a riot near the Garda station”. The mob took stones from the walls surrounding the castle grounds and pelted them at Gardai.

No more than 15 to  20 Gardai were on duty that night, a totally inadequate policing unit for such a large crowd. “I was in the village and at that stage we had to send for reinforcements and two bus load of Gardai arrived within a couple of hours to help us quell the situation and get people out of the village. We were very lucky the Garda station wasn’t burned. We were all inside the station under siege and one other thing that should be noted was that Sergeant John Clarke – may God be good to him – and he was at the time living in what was known as the official quarters directly over the station. His wife Eileen and all the children were in the station and there was no back entrance. The only way they could get out was right down the front steps where the trouble was. We had to post a number of Gardai at the top of the steps to make sure people didn’t break in. The crowd set fire to cars, vans, anything that moved. Henry Mountcharles vowed after that that there would never again be a concert on a Sunday and he kept to that”.

Long Term Involvement Over the Years- But Henry Always Had Safety & Security Uppermost

Slane from the sky The view from the Garda helicopter
pic; Garda Siochana

Michael Finnegan had been involved in a number of ways in all the concerts starting at a time when he was a detective sergeant based in Navan and responsible for criminal investigation, and on to the time when he was a superintendent and later on his appointment as chief superintendent in 1997 (retiring in 2006). His role as overall commander of policing the concerts came in in 1997 and he remembers the enormous preparation that went on for months on end prior to a concert. “I remember Eamon Courtney was a superintendent in Navan at the time and Eamon would have put in three or four months work together with others. It was a huge task to get together enough personnel to police it.

For instance when U2 ran two concerts in Slane in 2001 we had up to 800 police at each concert. We had to liaise with a number of people, first of all Henry Mountcharles himself, and in the early days the promoter Jim Aiken and his brother Mick and latterly Eamonn McCann of MCD. When we held those discussions there was one thing always uppermost in Henry’s mind – the security and safety of the village of Slane. He insisted there would be proper fencing, proper policing and everything in relation to the welfare of the people living in the village”.

Timothy Kidman Killing 1989
Timothy Kidman, a man known to Michael Finnegan, and known to Michael Finnegan during his work as a Garda, was a gamekeeper on the Slane Castle estate. On a Saturday evening in September 1989 (17 th September) he heard shots from the North side of the river Boyne. He was on the South or Beauparc side and rowed across to investigate. He met two teenagers from Drogheda Michael Hodgins and Shane O’Brien. Shots were fired at Kidman who ran. He was caught in barbed wire and more shots were fired at him. Following extraction from the wire he ran again but was shot a third time.

His body was thrown into an old quarry on the land. When Kidman had not turned up after a number of hours a search was organised by the Mountcharles family and the staff. “It was absolutely horrendous”, Finnegan said, “I had known Timmy Kidman and he was one of nature’s gentlemen, a lovely guy, the most inoffensive, non-confrontational man you could meet but a great man for his job. The Mountcharles family and all the staff were devastated over that. I was a witness in the following trial – the two fellows were charged with murder. At the trial the normal procedure would be that a defence could object to up to 20 potential jurors but in this case that went up to 40 which should never have been agreed to. They finished up with a very young jury. Hodgins was convicted of manslaughter and he was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment and O’Brien was acquitted”.

The fire 1991

Michael Finnegan was a detective sergeant in Navan when the force got word at about 4am that the castle had gone on fire. “When we got there there were a couple of fire brigades there. Henry
Mountcharles had been at a function in Dublin and got word. He arrived and he was absolutely stunned, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. We had been asked by the fire personnel not to
allow anyone into the castle because it was too dangerous. Henry was desperate to go in and save one particular painting of sentimental value to him that was hanging in the hall and we said ‘no, you can’t’. He wasn’t happy about that but we didn’t let him in and within four or five minutes the roof collapsed”. After the fire Finnegan remembers Mountcharles saying that “if it was the last thing I do I’ll restore the castle”. He had worked “might and main” for years through organising concerts and collecting the money to put the castle back on its feet. “It was a credit to him that he did so.”

Fake Tickets
In 2001 as preparations for the concert proceeded Gardai put out a warning about the circulation of forged tickets. They believed that an organised criminal operation was behind the incident.
Ticketmaster said the tickets were of good quality but were worthless and would not secure admission to the U2 and Red Hot Chilli Peppers concert. They were selling for €80 each, double the
face value. “There was a massive demand for tickets. The concert was sold out at about 83,000 tickets and we got word about forgeries being found by the police in England, about seven or eight
thousand. A search was organised in Dublin and the Gardai found another six or seven thousand. With the concert sold out you could have up to another 30-40,000 people looking for tickets and Slane would have been flooded. There were misgivings about the holding of a second concert but with the help of negotiations conducted by Sergeant John Clarke with the people of Slane, that concert was allowed to proceed.