Pensioner determined to marry young Polish fiancée
A pensioner in love with a Polish woman more than 40 years his junior has been forced to delay their Christmas wedding after she fell ill, he revealed today.
Patsy Brogan, 72, who has been married three times before, was planning to set off for Krakow from Ireland with his bride-to-be Daria Weiske, 29.
But the St Stephen's Day ceremony has been put on hold until the New Year after she went down with flu.
“It’s heartbreaking, but we can wait a little while longer,” he said. “She is looking out for me all the time and believe me, it’s not my money that she’s after.”
Mr Brogan, a former airline pilot, is at the centre of a drinks-licence dispute. Donegal County Council has started legal action to shut him down, despite categorical denials he is selling alcohol inside a shed he calls the Bog Inn Hotel and which he claims is used as a private bar only to entertain friends.
It is beside his bungalow home, high in the hills, 13 miles from Donegal town in an area known as the Frosses.
Council staff who allege he is running a shebeen are due back in court again on January 25 to demand the place is closed. By that time the couple hope to be married.
They were due to become man and wife tomorrow, but as they made final preparations to fly out of Dublin, Ms Weiske, a former waitress who speaks six languages, went down with flu, according to Mr Brogan, a father of nine.
He first married in Manchester in 1957 and then twice again in 1992 and 1995 in Birmingham, where he worked as a pilot before returning to Ireland.
He claimed it was his drinking and womanising which cost him his marriages, but insists his philandering days have ended after meeting Daria two years ago when she and a number of migrant girlfriends visited the Bog Inn, which is now under the threat of closure.
Mr Brogan said: “She could have her pick of any one of a thousand men, but she chose me. She is my pretty, little baby. She wouldn’t look at another man, not even if it was Rock Hudson.
“She was very, very unhappy before she met me. She speaks six languages, but couldn’t understand English and cried all the time because people were taking advantage of her. We’re hopelessly in love.
“We get visitors from all over the place who come here with their own drink to enjoy themselves, some of them millionaires who come in by helicopter. We don’t sell drink, despite what some people might think.
“There is a stage and Daria is up there playing the guitar and singing her heart out. She has a voice like Patsy Cline, and I’ve watched women weep with emotion because she is so nice. She is a film star, an absolute star, and everybody wants her.”
The legal action over his bar has been running for two years. Donegal Council is demanding the shed be returned to its original use. It was built 20 years ago.
A five-year-old boy is the youngest of Mr Brogan’s children by his three marriages. A daughter, aged 48, was knocked down and killed by a drunken Mexican driver in July 2000 in New Jersey. The driver later disappeared after jumping bail.
Mr Brogan says he intends to be happily married again before the next court hearing.
He said: “She is my little darling. I’ve heard people suggest she might be some type of gold digger, but that’s complete rubbish. She is like nobody else I’ve ever met. I can’t believe my luck.”
