A 17-year-old boy who repeatedly stabbed an Army chaplain outside a barracks last year has been sentenced to ten years detention with the final two years suspended.
The boy had pleaded guilty to attempting to murder Fr Paul Murphy by stabbing him multiple times at Renmore Barracks in Galway on 15 August 2024.
The judge ordered that the boy be supervised for three years after his release and must undergo any programmes including a deradicalisation programme as directed by the Probation Service.
Mr Justice Paul McDermott issued a stark warning about the dangers to society of lightly or unregulated access to the internet for children and warned of potential "enormous societal consequences" if it is not addressed effectively.
The judge said attempted murder was a "very serious offence and all the more serious when it is committed against a member of the Defence Forces".
Fr Paul Murphy speaks outside court after teenage boy sentenced
He said the circumstances of this case were as "terrifying as they were extraordinary".
"In the modern world, vulnerable and highly impressionable and otherwise intelligent teenagers can be the object of dangerous, manipulative, false and malicious propaganda by terrorists or other dangerous elements in society," the judge said.
He said the court had seen this in a number of other cases involving extreme physical and sexual violence perpetrated by young people against a background of their access to unsuitable and extreme subject matter online.
He said due to their immaturity, children could be drawn to unsuitable sites and become "relatively easy prey for fanatical propagandists".
"This is made possible because these malign influencers or groups have very open and virtually uncontrolled capacity to establish and maintain such platforms.
"Children have open access to their sites and they in turn gain access to our children to spread their poison," the judge said.
He said those who suggest this area of modern life should remain lightly or unregulated ignore the damage caused to children and the suffering inflicted on others as a result.
The judge added that "at times one could be forgiven for thinking there is a reluctance by some to accept an appropriate level of responsibility or accountability for what they facilitate.
"It is a very real and important child care, safety and protection issue with enormous societal consequences if it is not addressed effectively."
The judge said that as a result of his obsessive engagement with material online, the boy in this case had formed a distorted understanding of the world of the Irish Defence Forces in Mali and decided to "exact revenge".
He said the attack was not planned with the knowledge of anyone else in Ireland but it was clear that his intention was to kill a member of the Defence Forces and his persistence in that attack was a disturbing element.
The teenage boy had an obsessive personality and was prone to become engrossed in certain subjects, the judge said the boy had been radicalised and this was rooted in his being drawn in via the internet to extreme views.
He said the boy's vulnerability to this was exacerbated by his autism spectrum disorder, his social isolation and his prolonged engagement with certain websites.
He said while a certain level of maturity could be expected from a 16-year-old, he was not experienced enough to understand the warped and twisted perspectives he encountered.
Mitigating factors included his very early guilty plea, his genuine remorse and his lack of previous convictions, the judge said.
'Love is stronger than hate' says Army chaplain after stabbing sentence
Outside court, Fr Murphy made a brief statement in which he said it was "very easy for us to fight hatred with hatred and the world just becomes entrenched in hatred and that is the way the world is at the moment".
"St John said that God is love and if we believe God to be love, then we know that love is stronger than hate and so to respond to hate with love will hopefully bring a different world for us all," he said.
"This young boy is going to prison for a few years and my only hope is that he will return to society better able to manage his own life and also to make a more positive contribution to society.
"My focus now is to get home to prepare for the international and military pilgrimage to Lourdes which is coming up and then three days after that, I deploy to Lebanon for six months," Fr Murphy said.
Before he was taken back into custody, Fr Paul Murphy again spoke to his assailant for a few moments after shaking his hand.
At a sentence hearing earlier this month, Fr Murphy told the boy he forgave him and hugged him after the hearing as the boy apologised to him.
The court was told the boy, who was 16 at the time, supported the so-called Islamic State terrorist group and had been radicalised online.
On 15 August 2024, the secondary school student had been working and then went to the gym. He then cycled to the barracks.
Fr Murphy was returning to the barracks at 10.45pm and was waiting in his car outside the gate when the boy approached and asked to talk to him.
As soon as Fr Murphy lowered his window, the boy lunged at him with a hunting knife and began stabbing him repeatedly, hanging on to the side of the vehicle as it drove through the gates.
He was later restrained by soldiers.
A knife recovered at the scene was a hunting knife with an eight-inch serrated blade.
It had been bought online and delivered to the boy's home in November the previous year.
When he was arrested, the boy told gardaí: "I did it. I attacked the guy in the car."
He said he did it to "protest the Irish Defence Forces' work in Mali and all the stuff for Islam".
An analysis of devices found at his home found content suggestive of a radicalised Islamic mindset and included graphic videos of beheadings and other acts of extreme violence.
In a victim impact statement, Fr Murphy also told the court that he was the best-placed person to "take the knife that night".
He said he thanked God every single day that the knife tore through his skin and "not through the body of one of my comrades".
He said he considered it an honour and a privilege to carry the scars until his dying day.
When the boy's home was searched, a poster with Arabic writing saying 'Allahu Akbar' or' God is Great' was found, as well as an Islamic State flag and a notebook with writing and graphic sketches depicting beheadings.
The boy denied that the sketches were his.
The court heard he had converted to Islam at the age of 15 and regularly attended Friday prayers at a mosque in Galway.
In interviews, the boy claimed to have no real recollection of the incident but apologised saying he did not realise the man he had stabbed was a priest.
He said he had mental health problems, including depression and anger, adding: "I don’t know what made me do it".
