Woman labelled ‘neighbour from hell' appeals jail term after latest abusive dispute
A middle-aged Laois woman has said she has been wrongly made out to be a 'bad bitch' and 'neighbour from hell' after being sentenced to prison for her latest dispute with neighbours on her road in Mountrath.
Geraldine Doheny (51), who a judge claimed has 'an inability to mind her own business', was recently sentenced to three months behind bars after being convicted of criminal damage and threatening and abusive behaviour towards a neighbour at Old Forge Crescent, Mountrath on August 9, 2024.
Ms Doheny, who is appealing the jail term, has been in multiple disputes with neighbours, including her own brother, on the road for the past seven years but said she is wrongly being made out to be the one in the wrong and has asked the council to be moved but has been refused.
She has previously been bound to the peace for an incident in which she headbutted her brother and produced a hurl and was also arrested over another incident earlier this year where she waved a hurl at another neighbour who she claimed had spat on the pavement.
Ms Doheny told the Sunday World that she had also been in dispute with former next door neighbours who moved out after she pointed CCTV cameras at their property.
She said she had unfairly been labelled a 'neighbour from hell'.
'They're saying I'm causing all the trouble. The guard painted me out to be a bad bitch [saying] I headbutted, I had a hurl. I'm frustrated, I've had enough. I'll do prison but I've done nothing to get it,' she said.
She said she had been living on the road for 18 years but only started getting into disputes around seven years ag after rowing with her brother and his then partner and since then she has received four convictions related to disputes with various neighbours.
Other people she was rowing with have also been before the courts including her brother and her brother's former partner.
'It's all madness, There's been too much,' she said.
She was handed down the prison sentence in June over an incident in August 2024 where she called to a female neighbour's house while on the phone to gardai complaining her tax on her car was out of date.
'The garda said what's her reg and I'd forgotten her reg but in the frustration of the moment I asked her did she want to talk to the guard on the phone
'I went up to her with the phone. I said talk to the guard.'
The incident led to a row during which she grabbed her neighbour's chain and threw it down the shore. Ms Doheny's phone was also damaged in the incident.
'I swear on my son's life I did not hit her,' Ms Doheny said this week.
Mr Doheny was charged with threatening and abusive behaviour and criminal damage. Her neighbour was also initially charged with criminal damager to Ms Doheny's phone but those charges were later dismissed.
CCTV of the incident was played in Portlaoise District Court.
'They played the one bit of footage over and over. I think it must have been 15 to 20 times of seeing if I kicked her or didn't kick her. For two hours this was going on. I didn't hit her.'
Ms Doheny said she had ongoing issues with her neighbour and they didn't get on and it wasn't just down to a tax disc being out of date.
Judge Andrew Cody noted it was the third time Ms Doheny had been back in court for 'fighting with neighbours' and said she seems to have 'a complete inability to mind her own business'.
He said she clearly invaded her neighbour's personal space and attacked her on the side of the road before sentencing her to six months in prison with the final three months suspended.
A garda witness said she had previous convictions for affray and criminal damage arising out of other disputes with neighbours on her road.
Ms Doheny said this week that she headbutted her brother Joseph, who lived on the road with his partner Lorraine Hall, in one of those previous incidents after confronting him about him coming up to her home.
'I confronted him. He got in my face and told me to go into my house. He kept getting into my face so I headbutted him and said get out of my face.
'I cant stand him. I helped him get his disability and his new apartment and that's the thanks I got for it.'
She said she hasn't got on with her brother in recent years and no longer talks to him. She said she was given a suspended sentence over that incident and bound to the peace. Her brother was also bound to the peace over that incident.
She said she has also been involved in an ongoing dispute with Lorraine Hall. One row between the pair started on Facebook and spilled out onto the street in February.
Ms Hall called to Ms Doheny's house while intoxicated and started shouting at her.
'She called me a baby killer'
Ms Hall admitted trespass, being intoxicated and behaving in a threatening, abusive or insulting manner at an address at Old Forge Crescent on February 6 last.
Four days later Ms Doheny got into yet another dispute, this time with her next door neighbour whose bracelet she broke last year, after claiming she saw her spitting outside her gate.
'I went out to her with a hurl,' she said. 'I had enough of the spitting. I was sick of it. I said 'you better stop coughing up your insides and spitting it at my gate'. I have a right to do that. I had the hurl in my hand. She laughed and walked back in.
'I didn't hit her. I'm sorry now. I should have if I was going to go to prison for it.'
While she hasn't been charged over that incident, she was arrested in relation to it in April.
'I was never in a garda car before. I was only gone for about three hours.
'They put me into a cell in Abbeyleix. It was grand and cool to be honest. I'm going through the menopause but it was grand and cool and it was spotless. It was grand and clean. The female guard asked me what it was like and I said it's grand and cool in there. She asked me if I wanted fresh air but I said I'm grand. I wouldn't mine going back into it, it's like a little therapy room.
'You see the joke side of a bad situation and that's the way I looked at it. It was grand and cool though and you could hear the birds outside.'
She said she had also been in a number of disputes with former next door neighbours who moved out three years ago because they no longer wanted to live beside her.
'She said I had her kids terrorised. They moved because I put a camera at my door and I pushed it right in on her grounds. Then they moved out. It was because of the camera.'
She said she is getting unfairly maligned when she appears in court.
'They painted me out to be wrong. I don't care what people who don't know me say but people who know me know I'm not like that.
'I've just come to the stage where I don't care now.'
She said more than a dozen neighbours provided character references for her for her court hearing.
She said she has made numerous complaints to gardai about incidents which she said happened to her over the years but most of them don't make it to court.
After one of those isMiddle sues was struck out of court she said she gave out to the judge.
'I said you're nothing but wankers. I'm frustrated, I've had enough.'
She said she has pleaded with the council to be moved out of Old Forge Crescent but they have turned down her requests.
'Old Forge Crescent doesn't do it for me anymore.
'I'd go live in a caravan now and put it a the side of the road and walk away from all of this.
'If it went up on fire I'd stand outside and look at it.'
'They wont give me a move because of good estate management. If I have good estate management why the hell am I [supposed to be] causing all the trouble in this estate?'
Her appeal against the severity of her sentence will be heard in November.
'If I have to go to prison for doing nothing wrong, I'll take the sentence but I have done nothing wrong.'
Geraldine Doheny pics
Today's News in 90 Seconds - July 20th
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