Couple tied neighbour’s cat in bag before ‘leaving it to die’

AN elderly Carrickmacross couple, who captured their neighbour’s cat and tied it in a bag, before leaving it at a lake a few miles away, were each given three-month prison sentences for what a judge described as a “cruel” and “horrendous” act against an innocent animal.

Patrick Connolly (67) and Bernie Connolly (64) of Alderwood, Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, pleaded guilty at Monaghan District Court to engaging in an act of animal cruelty at their home on May 13 of last year. Both also pleaded to stealing a female cat on the same occasion, although Mr Connolly had already received an adult caution for this offence.

Sergeant Jim McGovern said Agnieszka Krajewska had attended Carrickmacross Garda Station on Tuesday, May 13, 2025 to report the theft of her pet cat. She said the cat had been left in the garden of their home that morning, but that they noticed it wasn’t there when they returned home.

She checked CCTV footage, and it showed that, at about 9:50am, her neighbour Patrick Connolly lifting the cat from his patio. Sgt McGovern said the CCTV showed Mr Connolly shaking out a white bag in his back garden, and later leaving his property with the bag while in the company of his wife, Bernie Connolly. The footage showed the couple returning home a short time later, “empty handed”.

The sergeant said further CCTV footage was downloaded following a search (on foot of a warrant) at the Connolly home. In this, the pet cat was seen being trapped while in the kitchen. Patrick Connolly was seen removing the cat from the counter and placing it into a white bag, which Bernie Connolly tied with a string. They subsequently left the property with the bag before returning a short time later.

The court was told that, when first spoken to by Garda Colleen Gaffney, the Connollys denied any knowledge of the cat. But they made admissions after the CCTV footage was downloaded, and said they left the cat at Creevy lake, a few miles outside Carrickmacross. Sgt McGovern said that was where the owners found it three days later, “in a very poor condition but alive”.

Judge Raymond Finnegan’s first reaction was to ask, “Why would anyone do that to an animal?”

Sara Brennan BL, instructed by Seamus Mallon, solicitor, said the people involved in this case were next door neighbours. The cat had been coming into the Connollys’ garden on a regular basis and defecating in it. Bernie Connolly had given up work a number of years earlier to take care of her grandchildren, and the children had been coming into to the house on numerous occasions with cat dirt on their shoes and hands.

The Connollys had approached their neighbours a few times to ask if they could try to keep the cat out of their garden, but this was to no avail. Tempers had reached a peak, and it was accepted that her clients did something that was “exceptionally foolish”.

When Ms Brennan said the Connollys wholeheartedly recognised that they shouldn’t have done what they did, Judge Finnegan remarked that they didn’t recognise it too well when they initially denied it. This was accepted by the lawyer, but she said her clients might have panicked as they realised how serious the incident was.

They were offering a very fulsome apology and also had €1,000 with them to offer in compensation for their actions, Ms Brennan stressed.

Pointing to their ages, she said they were both retired, and that Patsy would have been Garda vetted for his role as a lollipop man in the six years before he retired. They had three adult children and seven grandchildren, all of whom were doing well, and are “a good, respectable couple”.

But Judge Finnegan retorted, “No they are not.” They were not respectable if they could do what they did to an innocent animal. Nor did he agree that this was an error of judgement on the part of the defendants.

‘See how you feel

being trapped’ - judge

Deferring the matter until the end of the hearing, he said he needed to reflect on it, and that he would be considering a lengthy prison sentence. The judge also ordered that the Connollys be kept in the court’s prison cell in the meantime, telling them directly, “You can see how you feel being trapped for a while.”

When it came to the sentencing, Judge Finnegan told Ms Brennan he had thought long and hard on the matter. He said that, given what he had heard, he could not see a way of avoiding a prison sentence. The accused had taken an innocent animal, put it in a bag, and then they threw it at the side of a lake before “leaving it to die”.

Ms Brennan again appealed to the court to consider the defendants’ ages and their respectable lifestyle prior to this. Having to attend the Garda station and come before the court had served as a very salutary lesson. What they did was serious, she said, but they were “clearly not thinking straight” at the time.

But Judge Finnegan said what the Connollys did was “absolutely out of order”. It was crude, it was horrendous, and to do that to an innocent animal that was “doing what animals do in every garden” was “unspeakable”.

The judge conceded that the defendants might have been somewhat unfortunate in that they were coming before “an animal lover”, but he said he would not countenance their behaviour. On that basis he sentenced both of the Connollys to three months’ imprisonment on the animal cruelty charges.

The theft charges were taken into consideration, while recognisances for appeal of the sentence were set at €250 cash in both instances.