The unfinished final chapter in a life of conflict and contradiction

Jackie Keogh, who broke the story of Ian Bailey’s fatal heart attack, and subsequent cremation, looks back on a man who courted controversy.

THE story of Ian Bailey’s life over the last 27 years, since the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier on the night of December 23rd 1996, has proven to be stranger than fiction. Not only did he deny any involvement in the murder of the French film producer, he denied ever having met her.

Yet it was Ian Bailey who, in February 1997, made it known to reporters that he had been interviewed at Bandon Garda Station about her murder. It was the start of a pattern that would see Ian Bailey engage in a contradictory game of cat and mouse with the media.

In one instance, he would claim he was being persecuted, and in another he would contact reporters and post online what could only be considered damning statements.

Ian Bailey made news too, in 2001, when he was given a three-month suspended sentence at Skibbereen District Court for assaulting his then partner Jules Thomas at her home at The Prairie at Lissacaha, Schull.

In March 2020, Ian Bailey also appeared before Bantry District Court charged with four drug-related charges including possession of cannabis and drug-driving.

His appeal of that drug-driving conviction was being challenged in the circuit court. In fact, it was adjourned as recently as Friday, January 19th. And, just last summer, he was arrested on suspicion of drink driving.

Ian Bailey’s online presence fuelled interest in him and the murder case. Some of it led to expressions of support, as well as derision, and on at least one occasion, it might have caused him to be attacked.

On November 30th 2022, Ian Bailey made a formal complaint to gardaí about being assaulted in Bantry.

He publicised his reaction to the alleged assault on TikTok, saying he was on his way to meet people by appointment when ‘three lads piled out of a car’. It had been suggested that he was lured there to be taunted and attacked.

The story of how the well-educated English man came to West Cork started with his disillusionment with life in England in the 1990s.

When he first relocated to West Cork, he arranged to meet two local reporters in Bantry to discuss how best to break into freelancing locally, having previously worked as a reporter in Cheltenham and Gloucester.

But his first foray into Irish life was as a farmhand in Waterford. He did that before moving west, and then to Wicklow, and then back again to West Cork, where he took up residence in Schull in 1991.

Ian Bailey and his partner Jules Thomas were a familiar sight at both the Skibbereen and Schull farmers’ markets, selling their garden produce.

In later years, he was a more familiar, and solitary figure, at Skibbereen market where he would be selling copies of his books of poetry entitled The West Cork Way and A John Wayne State of Mind.

Ian Bailey graduated from UCC with a masters in law in 2010 having written a thesis entitled Policing the Police – Garda Accountability in Ireland.

Ian Bailey at his UCC graduation. (Photo: Carlos Benlayo)

Whatever about the attention Ian Bailey received – both wanted and unwanted – his life changed utterly after the two docu-series Sophie: A Murder in West Cork and Jim Sheridan’s Murder at the Cottage both aired.

That, and the ending of his relationship with Jules Thomas – who has always claimed he was innocent of the crime of murdering Sophie – caused Ian Bailey increased notoriety, and some would say it left him utterly rudderless.

In the intervening years, his health deteriorated to the extent that he received treatment for a series of heart attacks.

From time to time, there would be bizarre reports such as the late Sinead O’Connor travelling to Glengarriff – where Ian Bailey had been staying for a time before finding an apartment in Bantry – to interview him. That was in July 2021, and newspapers everywhere carried photographs of the singer, who wrote a column for the Sunday Independent, posing with Ian Bailey.

It was just one more chapter in a book that – given the family of Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s call to gardaí to continue the cold case review – may never be complete.