A TIPPERARY man has been found guilty of stealing mature ash trees for the manufacture of hurleys from ancient woodland owned by Libertas founder Declan Ganley and his neighbour near Tuam two years ago.

John Keane (33), New Houses, Faugheen, Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary, stole the prized ash timber which he then sold to a hurley-maker in Tipperary, Galway Circuit Criminal Court heard during his two-day trial.

Keane had denied the theft of eight ash trees from Mr Ganley’s property at Moyne Park, Tuam, on Friday, June 12th, 2009.

He also denied the theft of 14 ash trees from property owned by Thomas McHugh at Moyne Park, Tuam, two days earlier.

It took a jury 30 minutes to find him guilty yesterday of the offences.

Sentencing has been adjourned to May 25th for the preparation of a probation report, but Judge Raymond Groarke disqualified Keane from driving immediately as he used a van in the commission of the thefts.

Judge Groarke said he would decide on the length of the disqualification in May and he also directed Keane to stay away from Co Galway until his sentencing hearing.

Both landowners told the jury they never gave Keane permission to enter their respective woodlands to cut down their trees.

Keane had told the jury that Mr Ganley’s groundsman, Kieran Quinn, gave him permission to cut the trees down on Mr Ganley’s property on the Wednesday and that he mistakenly strayed into Mr McHugh’s part of the wood, thinking it belonged to Mr Ganley.

He said he and his brother Niall and two others had travelled all around the country for 20 years looking for ash trees suitable for hurleys. He claimed most farmers let him have their trees for nothing and he gave them hurleys in return.

He said he sold the 16 ash butts he had taken from Mr McHugh’s forest on June 10th, for €800 on the following day to a man called Jim, a hurley-maker from a village near Mullinahone, Co Tipperary.

Conor Fahy, prosecuting, put it to Keane that he must think Mr Ganley and Mr Quinn were “fools and idiots” to let him have such priceless trees for nothing. He suggested to Keane that the felling of the trees had been a commercial, industrial operation, with four men felling 16 trees quite quickly.

Keane insisted he had been given permission by the groundsman to cut the timber and he said he would not have travelled all the way from Tipperary without knowing he had permission.

Mr McHugh, from Derreen, told the jury he was very hurt and mad when he discovered his trees had been felled in his 500-year-old forest.