A 39-year-old man has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his mother in Sligo two years ago.
Nigel Canavan claimed he was provoked and defending himself from an attack when he killed his 58-year-old mother, strangling her and smothering her to death.
The jury did not believe him and convicted him of murder last month.
Angela Canavan of St John’s Terrace in Sligo, had suffered a brain injury in 2019. She had also suffered from alcoholism in the years before her death.
Canavan gave evidence at his trial claiming his mother had deliberately provoked him by calling him the worst son in the world and saying she wished she never had him. He also told gardaí his mother had attacked him by swinging her open hands at him and trying to kick him.
Ms Canavan had suffered a laceration to the top of her head, three broken ribs and bruises to her face, body, arms and legs as well as being strangled and smothered.
Some injuries suggested she had been trying to defend herself from an attack.
Ms Canavan’s other son, Keith, gave victim impact evidence to his brother’s sentence hearing.
He said his mother had been his hero and achieved so much in her life, even through adversity. She had gone back to college to train as a psychotherapist and Mr Canavan said she was his inspiration.
Keith Canavan described his mother as caring, kind and devoted and someone who always rooted for the underdog.
He said she had been painted in a certain light during the trial and it was not who she was. Mr Canavan said his mother had a fear of anyone touching her neck and it was incomprehensible that she had died in the way she did. He said he could not get out of his head the image of the fear in her eyes as his brother took her life.
He said one of the most difficult things to cope with was thinking about how his mother would have been feeling and how scared she was as her life was taken away in the most cruel, violent and sadistic way possible.
He said the unanswered questions about her death had left many of Ms Canavan’s loved ones unable to process their grief.
He said his brother was "without an ounce of remorse" and he had not taken responsibility. He said his actions were not those of someone who loved his mother. Nigel did not just take his mother’s life, he said, but her dignity too. He said he portrayed her not as the woman she truly was but as someone he could scapegoat to protect himself.
The trial heard that Nigel Canavan crashed his car outside his family home while drunk in February 2023, before confronting the driver of the other car holding a hurl. He pleaded guilty to drunk driving and assault.
His wife said she wanted a separation and Canavan moved to his father’s home and then to his mother’s home. On the May bank holiday in 2023, Canavan went to work at a hotel in Knock. On his way home, he bought some food from a takeaway and drank from a bottle of vodka he had bought earlier.
At around 8.30pm he rang emergency services to say he had found his mother dead in the kitchen. He told gardaí later that evening that he had gone upstairs to get away from his mother after an argument. He said he heard loud bangs and when he came downstairs to investigate, he found her dead on the floor.
In evidence, Canavan accepted that he had been present when his mother died and that he had caused her death.
However, he claimed she had launched a "tirade" of abuse at him and that she had stabbed her own thighs with a steak knife.
Prosecuting counsel Conor Devally had urged the jury to reject what Canavan claimed as "bullshit" and to look at the forensic and pathology evidence.
Mr Justice Kerida Naidoo said the eloquence of Keith Canavan’s victim impact statement spoke for itself.
He said it was clear that Angela Canavan was a "well loved, accomplished person". He said it must be beyond any mother’s darkest imaginings that they would die at the hand of the child they gave birth to.
He sentenced Canavan to the mandatory sentence of life in prison.
