A man who beat his partner's mother to death and left parts of her body around the Dublin and Wicklow mountains in May 2017 has failed in his murder conviction appeal.
Kieran Greene's lawyers had argued that he may have been subjected to a "slow burn provocation" similar to that suffered by victims of domestic abuse, the Court of Appeal heard.
The lawyers had argued that the jury at his trial should have been allowed to consider that Patricia O'Connor provoked Greene, 37, into killing her by assaulting him and threatening his children following years of difficulties between the pair.
Mrs O'Connor's siblings, friends, work colleagues and her son, Richard O'Connor, denied after the trial that she would have said the things Greene claimed.
They accused him of "spiteful lies" and said they were hurt by how her character was "cruelly tarnished" by what he said.
Her siblings wrote in a statement to the court: "The people who truly knew her, her sisters, brothers, friends, work colleagues, her neighbours, will defend her kind, caring, loving nature; a jolly woman who sang out loud as she went about her day."
In dismissing the appeal today, Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy said there was no basis in the evidence at the trial regarding a defence of provocation that would mean that option should be put before a jury.
"We think the judge was right. There was no basis for leaving the defence of provocation in this case to the jury on the evidence," said Mr Justice McCarthy.
"We accept that there may be a certain flexibility in cases of domestic violence on the basis that since the personal background of each accused and the context of any offence must be taken into account - it may not be possible to treat a given event in isolation.
"There is nothing here which approaches such a basis."
Mr Justice McCarthy said a verdict of Greene being an accessory to the murder, rather than murder, had been requested by Greene's lawyers.
However, the court found that the trial judge was correct in telling the jury they had the options of guilty of murder, not guilty or not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.
Mr Justice McCarthy said the accessory-to-murder verdict was not a "viable" one and noted that it had been requested by the defence after the trial judge had already charged the jury.
In February 2020, Greene was given the mandatory life sentence for murder.
