THE inquest into the death of Screggan farmer Joseph Grogan is continuing at the Coroner’s Court in Tullamore this afternoon.
Mr Grogan was 75 when he died on April 15, 2023 having been diagnosed with stomach cancer the previous December.
The National Ploughing Championships were held on his land in 2016, 2017 and 2018 and the National Ploughing Association announced last year that they will be once again held on the farm of Lisa Flaherty Grogan this year.
The inquest was told last Friday week by a pathologist that the cause of death could not be determined and embalming the body before the post mortem meant many of the usual tests could not be carried out.
At the resumed inquest this morning (July 15), Niamh Higgins, sister of Lisa Flaherty, who got married to Joe Grogan the day before he died, said she was a psychiatric nurse with training in palliative care and was present when the farmer died.
Ms Higgins said she had kept notes of the events of the day because of her nursing training and had those notes with her in court.
She said she was observing Joe from about 2.30pm after calling to the house with her mother Aine Flaherty.
She said that at 3.48pm on April 15, 2023 she could no longer record a pulse or breath and she made a note of that time.
Ms Higgins also said she was present when a GP with the Midoc out of hours service, Dr Ben Kato, advised that an undertaken could be contacted and he would then send the report.
She said she believed the appropriate steps for medical intervention were taken that day. Lisa Flaherty had contacted oncology in Tullamore Hospital in the morning and an ambulance had been called.
Joe had said himself he didn’t want to go to hospital and his wishes were respected.
Ms Higgins said a number of other members of the Flaherty family were present in the house on the day Mr Grogan was dying, along with some friends, but there were no other Grogans there.
Earlier, Martin Keyes, undertaker, said he had been asked to “do the funeral” for Joe Grogan by his own father who was a friend of the deceased.
He took Joe Grogan’s remains to Shepherd’s embalming service in Longford after the death, after being told approval had been given by the doctor.
Under cross examination he agreed that Dr Kato had previously given evidence that approval had not been given.
Two days after the death Mr Keyes received a call from the gardai and the body had to be escorted to Tullamore Hospital.
Mr Keyes said he was a truck driver and part-time undertaker who had known Joe Grogan since he (Mr Keyes) was aged five.
In his 15 years as an undertaker he had done about 100 funerals and Shepherd’s was the embalmer he normally used.
Mr Keyes said what he had done was normal standard practice.
“It’s standard practice as an undertaker to do what the family wants you to do,” he said.
When Damien Tansey, SC, who represented members of the Grogan family, put it to him that he had taken possession of the body even though the death had not been certified, Mr Keyes said he had never seen a death certificate and it was always the family who got it.
He denied that the process had been rushed and after going to the house in his own car first he later went back with the hearse and left to go to Longford at about 7pm.
The last witness before the inquest broke for lunch was Mary Coyne, a lifelong friend of Lisa Flaherty and a healthcare assistant in the oncology unit in Tullamore Hospital.
She told the inquest she was at the house at about 9am on April 15 and noticed that Mr Grogan’s voice had “gone to a whisper”.
He told her that he had news and that it was that he and Lisa had got married the previous day.
Mr Grogan told her he had no pain and was comfortable and didn’t want to go to hospital.
The inquest again featured a number of exchanges between counsel for Ms Flaherty, Stephen Byrne, BL, and Mr Tansey, along with interventions by the coroner Raymond Mahon.
There were gasps in the courtroom when Mr Tansey again referred to the relationship between Mr Grogan and Ms Flaherty, saying that because she had stated it began when she was 16 that put the man “into the realm of being a paedophile”.
Ms Flaherty left the courtroom briefly.
There was also a reference by Mr Tansey that “in this case the widow inherits an estate worth €5.5 million” and the relevance of that comment was questioned by Mr Mahon.
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On Friday, July 4 the inquest was told by the pathologist who carried out the post mortem, Dr Charles d’Aldhemar, that he could identify no clear cause of the death because his examination was limited by previous embalming of the body.
Dr d’Aldhemar said it was extremely unusual to be asked to carry out a post mortem on an embalmed body.
Certain tests could not be done because of prior embalming and hence the cause of death was unascertained.
However he found from an examination of vitreous fluid that Zolidem [used for sleeping problems] and two anti histamines had been present in the body.
The inquest also heard from Dr Kanthi Perera, oncologist, Tullamore Hospital, that Mr Grogan had been responding well to chemo therapy and was due to be assessed for a further cycle before his death.
Dr Perera said she had been surprised when she heard that Mr Grogan had died on April 15, 2023, 10 days after the last session of chemo therapy and said about 60% of patients in his condition could survive for five years with successful further treatment.
Lisa Flaherty, widow of Mr Grogan, Screggan, Tullamore, said they got married in a registry office the day before her husband, a 75-year-old man diagnosed with stage four cancer, died on April 15, 2023 at his home.
He had undergone four cycles of chemo therapy after being diagnosed with stage four Non-Hodgkin lymphoma of the stomach the previous December.
Ms Flaherty said he had weighed 12 to 13 stone before he became ill but at the time of his death was just seven stone.
