By Ronan Judge

A fight between a group of women at Christmas in a busy shopping centre in Galway City was “literally about nothing and should never have happened”, a court has been told.

Two of the woman involved in the incident, Mary Frances Maughan (32), with an address at 48 An Sean Bhile, Doughiska, and Pamela Clare McDonagh (27), with an address 23 Fána Glas, Ballybane, pleaded guilty to affray, contrary to section 16 of the Public Order Act.

Sergeant Claire Heneghan told Galway District Court both women were in Dunnes Stores, Terryland, on the afternoon of December 22, 2024 when they got into a verbal argument with two other women.

The court heard the verbal argument developed into a “physical and aggressive row” involving punches, kicks, hair pulling and wrestling with all four women ending up on the ground.

Sgt Heneghan said this occurred a few days before Christmas when the store was busy and was a frightening experience for customers and staff.

Pamela Clare McDonagh, a mother of two, has three convictions, all for road traffic offences.

Mary Frances Maughan, a mother of two, has four convictions.

Defence solicitor, Sean Acton, said this was “appalling behaviour in a public place” that should never have happened and for which both women were apologetic, ashamed and embarrassed.

Mr Acton said he was instructed the “other side” started the shouting but that didn’t matter and the parties involved were all related.

He said he was assured by both women an incident like this would not happen again.

“It was literally about nothing and it shouldn’t have happened,” Mr Acton added.

Judge Adrian Harris said the court noted the date of the incident, a time when people should looking forward to Christmas but were instead confronted by this “outrageous behaviour”.

He said behaviour like this was “intolerable” at the best of times and it happened at a time when people were supposed to “reach out the hand of friendship to others and this was the exact opposite”.

In the case of Pamela Clare McDonagh, Judge Harris said that if €750 was given to St Vincent de Paul within three months, the charge would be struck out.

If not, the court would impose a fine of €850 and a criminal conviction would be recorded.

Judge Harris directed a report from the Probation Services for the Mary Frances Maughan and adjourned the case to April 20.

Two other women pleaded guilty last month to their roles in the disturbance.

Funded by the Courts Reporting Scheme.