An 86-year-old man has been given an eight-year suspended sentence for indecently assaulting two young children and raping one of them in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
John Joe Kiernan from Forthill, Arva in Cavan, pleaded guilty to 11 sample counts of indecent assault and one count of rape between 1958 and 1964.
Mr Justice Michael White praised what he described as the "unbelievable courage" of the man and woman, who are now in their 60s, but were aged five and four when the abuse began.
He said if Kiernan had been a younger man, in better health, the court would have imposed a substantial custodial sentence.
But he said the court's function was not to extract revenge but to protect society, deal with victims and rehabilitation.
He said it was not appropriate to impose a custodial sentence in this case.
Kiernan, who will turn 87 next month, is in chronic ill-health, with conditions including heart disease, osteoarthritis, obstructive pulmonary lung disease and diabetes and was now confined to his home due to his ill-health.
He has also already served a five-year sentence imposed in 2005 for sexual and indecent assaults against three boys and one girl and is alienated from his own children.
Mr Justice White said he accepted Kiernan was remorseful. He had originally tried to minimise the seriousness of the offences, but was now aware how serious they are.
The judge again praised the courage of the man and woman who came forward in this case.
In his sentencing remarks last week, he said they were "brutally traduced" at a time in Ireland when no one talked about these kind of things.
The judge said they were totally and utterly innocent children and he was struck by the overall brutality of the crimes.
Kiernan was old and frail now, but the offences took place when he was at the height of his strength as a farm labourer.
He was a strong man and had issued a "spine chilling threat" to the life of the then young girl. The judge said Kiernan knew that what he was doing was seriously wrong and was threatening them to make sure they did not tell anyone.
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The court heard that Kiernan was working as a farm labourer for a family.
The children's father was away working for long period of the year and their mother trusted and relied on Kiernan to help on the farm.
The boy was the eldest of the children and was five years old when he was first abused by Kiernan in a barn.
He told gardaí he was abused on an ongoing basis for most of his early years and the abuse became part of normal life.
The girl also gave evidence of being abused, beginning when she was four years old and of being raped on one occasion. She described Kiernan as a serious blight on her childhood.
She told gardaí that on one occasion, Kiernan's mother walked in while he was abusing her and roared and shouted at him to "get her out of here".
She described how Kiernan threw her to the ground outside the house with the chickens and told her he would bury her with all the other bones around there and no one would find her.
She said what he said caused her great anxiety for many years.
He also told her dogs would pull her apart like they were pulling apart a rabbit and no one would know or care.
She described another occasion where she stood up to him and pushed him away when she was around nine years old. She said she got really angry, but she said Kiernan was laughing at her.
Both the man and woman described how Kiernan would give them chocolate. They reported the abuse last year.
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When he was questioned about the crimes in this case, he said he had not sexually assaulted the children but had "just handled them" or "fondled them".
In victim impact statements the man and woman said their childhood innocence had been shattered. The woman said what Kiernan had done had created great turmoil throughout her life.
She said it had been very difficult to tell her family what had happened, but it had been healing to be believed.
The man said Kiernan had taken advantage of his mother and he had sad memories about his home. He now felt some relief.
Kiernan is now in significant ill-health, the court heard, and suffers from heart disease and diabetes.
His defence counsel, Grainne McMorrow, said he wanted to apologise for the trauma he visited on the man and woman and the impact that has had on their lives since.
She said he had been anxious to take responsibility for what he had done, albeit very late in the day.
Ms McMorrow said Kiernan had married in 1976 and had not offended again after that. She said he was ashamed of who he had been. She said the greater portion of his life was most certainly over.
Ms McMorrow said her client did not believe he was entitled to forgiveness, but he wanted to say and do anything that would ease their pain and dreadful memories.
She said in his answers to garda questions he did not appear to understand the nature of sexual assault, but appeared over time to have gained more insight into the impact of what he had done.
She said he was a man of limited intellectual and emotional understanding.
Ms McMorrow said he posed no risk of reoffending and she suggested he may have been a victim of sexual abuse as a child himself.
She said his mother's reaction to walking in on one of the incidents of abuse showed that these matters were not addressed appropriately in his own family.
Ms McMorrow said he was isolated and lonely at the time and had described himself as being not right in the head and sex-crazed.
She said he apologised profusely for the horrors he visited on the man and woman in their early childhood and wished them peace, prosperity and closure.
