A Mayo grandfather who married 19 times in three countries is getting acquainted with another kind of ball and chain after being jailed for bigamy.
Oliver Killeen, who once had a bogus psychologist’s practice in Ireland, was sentenced to 90 days in prison in Toronto, Canada, on conviction for the first of his fraudulent marriages which he entered in 1978.
Killeen, aged 75, emigrated from McHale Road in Castlebar in the 1950s with his first wife who bore him nine children, and led an unremarkable life until her death at the age of 38.
He then embarked on a 30-year bigamy spree that saw him woo and wed women in Canada, Britain and Ireland, usually disappearing around the same time they found out their life’s savings had also vanished.
His lies began to trip him up in 2001 when a solicitor in a court case in Wexford where he gave evidence of counselling a sex abuse victim queried his psychologist’s credentials and his answers failed to satisfy.
Fleeing Ireland, he discovered he was being pursued by police in Britain and served a sentence for bigamy there, becoming the subject of a 2006 TV documentary.
Killeen, then back in Canada, was undeterred by the publicity and even intervened in an online discussion about him on a community forum in his old home town, declaring he would be in Castlebar soon to "straighten some facts". "To say anything about me needs balls," he wrote. "I got ’em. How about you?"
As if to prove a point, he married again, re-energising a campaign by the daughter of his 1978 victim to have him prosecuted. Her campaign ended in a Toronto court when he was sentenced to 90 days in jail, to be served at weekends on account of his age.
Unrepentant to the last, the ageing lothario who once declared, "I get bored and women have a sell-by date", declined to use the opportunity to say sorry.
"I regret the mess I find myself in," was as much as he could bring himself to say. Barbara Daniels, the woman he first duped in 1978, wasn’t surprised. "It’s just a big inconvenience to him."
Killeen, aged 75, emigrated from McHale Road in Castlebar in the 1950s with his first wife who bore him nine children, and led an unremarkable life until her death at the age of 38.
He then embarked on a 30-year bigamy spree that saw him woo and wed women in Canada, Britain and Ireland, usually disappearing around the same time they found out their life’s savings had also vanished.
His lies began to trip him up in 2001 when a solicitor in a court case in Wexford where he gave evidence of counselling a sex abuse victim queried his psychologist’s credentials and his answers failed to satisfy.
Fleeing Ireland, he discovered he was being pursued by police in Britain and served a sentence for bigamy there, becoming the subject of a 2006 TV documentary.
Killeen, then back in Canada, was undeterred by the publicity and even intervened in an online discussion about him on a community forum in his old home town, declaring he would be in Castlebar soon to "straighten some facts". "To say anything about me needs balls," he wrote. "I got ’em. How about you?"
As if to prove a point, he married again, re-energising a campaign by the daughter of his 1978 victim to have him prosecuted. Her campaign ended in a Toronto court when he was sentenced to 90 days in jail, to be served at weekends on account of his age.
Unrepentant to the last, the ageing lothario who once declared, "I get bored and women have a sell-by date", declined to use the opportunity to say sorry.
"I regret the mess I find myself in," was as much as he could bring himself to say. Barbara Daniels, the woman he first duped in 1978, wasn’t surprised. "It’s just a big inconvenience to him."