Catalogue of knife deaths
A GLANCE at the cases in the courts this week gives a sobering insight into knife crime.
Last Monday, a 22-year-old man was sentenced to 12 years, with three years suspended, for the manslaughter of a 26-year-old man in north Dublin in September 2006.
James Donoghue’s life ended after Bernard Joyce and two friends had tried to get access to a 21st birthday party in Ballymun and were refused. They threw a bottle into the yard of the house and a number of people came out and beat them up.
Joyce and his friends went home and armed themselves with knives and sticks and returned to the party taunting those inside to come out.
There was a confrontation and Mr Donoghue received three stab wounds, one puncturing his heart.
Joyce was only 19 at the time.
On Tuesday, the trial began of John McGovern, then 17, who is accused of killing Michael Doherty, aged just 14, who was fatally stabbed in Ennis in June 2007.
On Wednesday, another fatal stabbing trial finished, when Thomas Connors, 25, was found not guilty by reason of insanity of killing Michael Hughes, 30, with a garden shears in south Dublin, in December 2007.
This week’s cases involved just three of 36 people who were fatally stabbed in 2007, twice the number in 2006. Most were in their 20s or 30s and a number were still in their teens.
Sean Nolan was one teenage victim. The 18-year-old’s life came to a sudden end when he got embroiled in a minor row with a complete stranger.
Finn Colclough was 17 when, on the morning of May 26, 2007, he fatally stabbed Mr Nolan outside his home on the affluent Waterloo Road in Ballsbridge, south Dublin.
Colclough had turned 18 when he was found guilty of manslaughter last November and given a 10-year sentence.
Both men had been out separately enjoying end-of-school celebrations. After a night’s socialising Mr Nolan, from Fairview, north Dublin, went with two others to find a party on Waterloo Road.
Colclough had earlier been celebrating a 21st birthday party with friends and his parents. Eyewitnesses said he had drank a considerable amount of alcohol. He became embroiled in a row with Mr Nolan outside his home on Waterloo Road.
Colclough became agitated and took two knives from his kitchen and went outside screaming. There was some pushing during which he stabbed Nolan a couple of times.
Alan Young was another teenager who died in 2007. In what was a particularly tragic case, the 19-year-old died after being knifed by a friend, Mark Green, also aged 19 at the time of the killing.
On the evening of March 11, 2007, the two men had been drinking in a pub in Irishtown, south Dublin.
Mr Young had slapped Green in the face because he believed he was spreading rumours about him.
Green left and went to a nearby area to drive a moped with a friend. The bike crashed and Mr Young and a number of others arrived at the scene where a further altercation took place between Mr Young and Green.
Green went to a nearby friend’s house where he found a sharp knife and returned to the bike, which had been vandalised. He remarked that Mr Young’s life would not be worth living.
Mr Young, who had left the area, was called back by friends, who goaded Green into repeating the threat.
A fight developed. Green was waving his knife and when Mr Young lunged at him, the blade entered the side of his chest.
Green was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment.
Mr Nolan and Mr Young were just teenagers, as were their killers. The rows that led to the murders were minor by any standard. Alcohol played a role in both cases.
The shocking rise in knife deaths in 2007 created serious concern for the then Justice Minister Brian Lenihan and Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy.
Mr Lenihan asked the commissioner to conduct a review on the issue and recommend if further legislation was required, including on the sale of samurai swords and knife possession.
“We have to get the message across that carrying knives not only carries heavy penalties, but can lead to disastrous consequences,” said Mr Lenihan in January 2008.
The 2008 Policing Plan, published in January, stated a marketing awareness campaign directed at the carrying of knives would be set up.
The following month a double fatal stabbing in Drimnagh, south Dublin, shocked the country.
At around teatime on 23 February, two Polish men, Pawel Kalita, 28, and Marius Szwajkos, 29, died from stab wounds after becoming involved in some sort of minor row with a group of local teenagers.
The death toll from stabbings fell dramatically in 2008, with provisional figures suggesting about 20 people died, a large drop on 2007, but similar to 2006.
The year ended grimly, however, with four fatal stabbings between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. On Christmas Day, Lithuanian national Gintaras Brazauskas, 29, was fatally stabbed in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, continuing a trend in recent years of a high number of fatal stabbings involving Baltic nationals.
On 28 December, 17-year-old Ali Ibraham Lal, a Somali national, was stabbed to death at a refugee centre in Limerick city on 28 December.
On the same date, Stephen Quigley, 24, from Dundalk was founded stabbed to death in a laneway in what is considered a murder associated with criminality.
Then on December 30, 22-year-old Michael Brennan, from Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny, was fatally stabbed at his uncle’s house where he was socialising with friends. His 18-year-old sister Caroline Brennan is charged with assault causing serious harm.
Peter Gunn, 32, was the first fatal stabbing this year. His badly decomposed body was found dumped in a remote laneway in north county Dublin on January 15. He had gone missing on January 4 after a night’s drinking with friends. It’s thought he got into a row with people he had met that night and was stabbed to death. He leaves behind a grieving family and two young children, aged six and three.
That in itself underlines the necessity for the knife awareness campaign.
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