Susanna Cawley (centre), whose victim impact statement was read to the court on Thursday, with her family

Every morning for three weeks, the Cawley family walked through the front doors of the Criminal Courts Justice (CCJ) building. The dignified figure of 80-year-old James Cawley was accompanied by his son Chris, daughter Susanna and in-laws. The architecture of the entrance was ideal for photographers. A wide concreted approach leads to a series of steps and on to a row of glass doors. Each day, anywhere between 15 and 25 photographers and cameramen took up position and got their pictures of the family.


While the scrum congregated around the Cawleys, other families passed by. More often than not these were young women, some of them pushing buggies, others accompanied by their mothers, or mothers-in-law. The usual attire was sportsgear of one sort or another.


Every morning, Eamonn Lillis approached the entrance from the nearby Phoenix Park. Word passed around and the snappers, weighed down with equipment, moved like a herd of elephants to take up position. Lillis never showed emotion. He wore the same dark suit and tie and was usually accompanied by his two middle-aged sisters.


While the scrum congregated around the Lillis siblings, other defendants passed by. Generally, they were young men. More sportsgear, plenty of jewellery, the odd chain around a neck like a dog collar. Their faces often betrayed hard lives, anger and even resignation.


Gagging for every detail


The contrast between the defendant and the victim's family on one side, and the general traffic into the CCJ building threw into stark relief the Eamonn Lillis murder trial. In the Four Courts, where both civil and criminal business was conducted, the traffic included everybody from millionaire businessmen suing one another down the rungs of the socio-economic ladder to desperate shoplifters.


In the CCJ building, crime is the only currency. The criminal justice system processes the poor, give or take the odd drunk driver who has killed somebody. Defendants and victims of violent crime in particular are drawn from the most deprived tower blocks and estates in Dublin and beyond.


More than anything, the incongruous sight of Lillis and the Cawleys trooping into this milieu every day accounted for the massive public interest in the case. As a solicitor, James Cawley has enjoyed a long and fruitful career straddling the worlds of law and business. His daughter practises with him. His son is a principal in the highly successful Cawley Nea advertising firm. Lillis is wealthy on foot of the success of the company he owned with his deceased wife, Celine, although she was the driving force behind their success.


Walking through the CCJ building, they were strangers in a strange land, one that is alien to most of us. Even for the men and women who habitually pass through the system, the Cawleys and Lillis were a novelty. Throw in an extra marital affair and an enduring mystery of how exactly Celine Cawley died, and the public were gagging for every detail of the unfolding trial.


While the Lillis trial was reaching a conclusion last week, another trial was taking place upstairs on the fourth floor in the Special Criminal Court. Colm Murphy is being charged with involvement in the Omagh bombing, the largest instance of mass murder recorded on the island. There was little or no coverage of that matter of public interest while the trial of a tragic domestic argument required the provision of an overflow room to accommodate the public.


The level of interest, as reflected by media coverage, was introduced at the sentencing hearing last Thursday. Judge Barry White was hearing submissions on Lillis's sentencing following his conviction for manslaughter last Friday week.


Lillis' lawyer Brendan Grehan referred to sentencing policy which allowed for adverse publicity, and the prospect of the publicity not fading away into the future, as a mitigating factor in sentencing. In effect, the interest around the case, as interpreted by the media, could theoretically shave off some months if not years from a sentence of unlawful killing.


On Friday, when he sentenced Lillis to seven years' imprisonment, the judge said he was taking into account – as one of a number of factors – the publicity and the likelihood of it continuing into the future.


The media also featured in the conclusion of his sentencing. "In considering the victim impact statement (from Celine Cawley's sister Susanna) it seem to me that the media has had little or no respect for the privacy or dignity of the Cawleys."


He said the treatment of the family on entry to the court building every day was "an affront to human dignity".


Media on trial


The previous day, the media were also under the cosh. In evidence, Sergeant Gary Kelly said that the media had "plagued Howth" since Lillis was convicted and remanded on bail. The gardaí were called a number of times to the Lillis home as a result of problems with elements of the media.


"They followed Mr Lillis and his daughter to riding school and into town," the garda said. "Every time he came to sign on [at the garda station] it was attended by photographers."


Grehan asked whether the photo­graphers had made inflammatory remarks to Lillis in an attempt to get a reaction, but Sgt Kelly said he had no knowledge of that.


"I did see them chasing him up the road," he said.


The Lillis/Cawleys' daughter also provided the court with a victim impact report, which wasn't read, but Grehan referred to her use of strong language in describing the impact on her of the media coverage. This is a teenager who has described how her mother's death and the fallout saw her going from "a 16-year-old girl to a 17-year-old hardened adult".


The impact of the media coverage on all parties couldn't but be of some concern. Most journalists – including this one – have protested that the saturation media coverage merely reflected the public's interest. There is absolutely no evidence that it was the media which ignited or inflamed the intense interest in the case. Novelty and the circumstances were enough to do that.


But as the detail of the activity on the wilder shores of the media pack seeped out, uncomfortable questions about boundaries surfaced. The Lillis home was under siege last week, despite the presence inside of a 17-year-old who had lost her mother to a violent death and was spending the last days with her father before his incarceration.


At least one reporter from a newspaper was assigned to track Lillis – and by extension his daughter – full-time until his bail expired. Daughter and father were unable to avail of their back garden, which was covered assiduously by a number of lenses. There were men behind trees, men on step ladders, allegedly one man in a tree.


Elsewhere in Howth, the brother of the man at whom Lillis had pointed the finger of suspicion in the hours after his wife's death, has also been under siege. The brother told Joe Duffy on Friday that reporters and photographers had hounded the man right through Lillis's trial.


The most abiding fear around the nature of the media coverage of the trial is that the daughter, when she turns 18 later this year, will be regarded as fair game.


While there is an argument that the coverage was again reflecting public interest, any notion of taste and boundaries seems to have been abandoned. Demented competition has ensured that the coverage for a trial of this nature is in danger of descending into frenzy.


The media business might well take heed of the excesses as described by the various parties last week. If ever politicians were looking for an excuse to push through a privacy bill – designed largely to protect the powerful from legitimate inquiry – the Lillis trial has provided them with further fodder.


Endless lies and scenarios


For Lillis, the conclusion of the trial was as good as he could have hoped for. In sentencing him, the judge gave a comprehensive outline of his reasoning. The most exacerbating factor in Lillis's behaviour was how he conducted himself after the death of his wife.


Two other high-profile cases were cited. Wayne O'Donoghue, the 20-year-old who was found guilty of the manslaughter of 11-year-old Robert Holohan, had hidden any knowledge of his friend's death for over a week after the incident. And Linda Mulhall, one of the women who became known as the Scissors Sisters, compounded her crime by dismembering the body of her victim, Farah Noor.


That is the company in which Lillis's crime now sits in a legal context.


His failure to acknowledge any responsibility for the crime was noted by the judge. He didn't offer to plead guilty of manslaughter. He never apologised to the Cawleys, until sentencing when he expressed regret through his lawyer.


In his own version of the row with Cawley, Lillis said that he told his wife to shove a brick she was wielding where the sun don't shine. Judge White suggested this was at odds with his image of the gentle disposition referenced by his character witnesses.


That was a harsh judgement. Even the gentlest soul can ignite in anger and uncharacteristic words. But overall, his deception defied the notion that he was "a dreamer who wouldn't hurt a fly".


He will serve just over five years, barring any descent into violent or criminal activity behind bars. Then he can resume his life, albeit one that has been changed irrevocably. He looks likely to retain most of his wealth when he emerges, although the trial set him back up to €100,000. His will be one of the very few major criminal trials not funded by legal aid this or any year.


The most heart-rending aspect of the Cawleys' plight was highlighted in the victim impact statement. "The endless lies and scenarios are in my mind, as is the terrifying realisation that we will probably never really know what happened on 15 December 2008," Susanna Cawley wrote.


"At night I play the scene over and over in my head of Celine's dying moments. Was she in pain? Was she conscious? Did she think about [her daughter]? Did she know she was dying?"


The not knowing is destined to go on for all. Only Lillis now knows what happened on that morning, and there is no indication that he will ever be willing to tell his deceased wife's loved ones how exactly she died.