'A bad man was in with us': Monstrous darkness invades children's safest space
Garda Press Office Superintendent Liam Geraghty speaking to media outside Mountjoy Garda Station, after the knife attack on Parnell Square East. Picture: Sasko Lazarov / RollingNews.ie
There were myriad emotions evident on Parnell Square East in the misty rain of a bleak November afternoon. Shock, confusion, and a swelling of anger.
Something monstrous had been visited upon what should be the safest place in the world — a primary school.
Less than an hour previously, three schoolchildren from the junior and senior infants classes at Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire — a mixed Irish language primary school of 170 children positioned across from the Gate Theatre and the Rotunda maternity hospital in Dublin’s north city centre — had been stabbed, apparently at random, by a male assailant while being led from the school at the end of their day towards their aftercare.
At least one child, a five-year-old girl, had been seriously injured in the incident and was rushed for emergency surgery at Temple Street Children’s Hospital, less than a two-minute walk from the scene of the incident.
Their creche leader, who had arrived to bring them to their aftercare on the far side of the famous square, was likewise seriously harmed.
Those four and their male assailant were swept away to hospital by a flurry of ambulances.
At 1.30pm, a man had set upon the children from junior and senior infants as they left the school at the end of class, with passers-by subsequently disarming the assailant, who was injured himself in the incident.
Gardaí said the man in his 40s is a “person of interest” in the incident, and they are following a definite line of inquiry. Crucially, An Garda Siochána is seeking no other people in relation to what had happened.
Eyewitness Siobhan Kearney, who had been attending the Stardust inquests at the nearby Rotunda complex and who was on a cigarette break at the time, reported how bystanders, including herself, had confronted the attacker after observing a “commotion” and the man making stabbing motions.
"Another young man disarmed him, and another man took the knife and put it away for the gardaí to find it," she told RTÉ's .
She said the woman and two of the children who had been attacked were then helped back to Gaelscoil Chólaiste Mhuire.
"It was absolutely bedlam," she said. "It was horrendous. The poor children, the screams out of them."
But on Parnell Square, as a crowd gathered at the Garda cordon at the Garden of Remembrance, few facts were known.
The crowd knew children had been harmed. Some thought there had been more than one assailant. Many of those present were parents of children from the school. They too were none the wiser, waiting for the children to be released into their care.
One father who had been on his way to a parent teacher meeting at the school at the time said his children had been collected beforehand by his wife and were enjoying a surprise tea at a hotel off the adjacent Gardiner Row.
He did not know who had been hurt. He did know the creche leader, and was desperate for news of her wellbeing.
It may all have started with shock and numbness, but it didn’t take long for anger to arrive on the scene.
Several men arrived at the cordon, and began to berate the massed gardaí, who remained impassive.
Two of them were particularly provocative. “You did this,” one shouted. “Maybe we should do your job.” “You took an oath,” said another.
One garda broke ranks. “This is affecting us too. I have kids too. But it doesn’t help to aggravate the situation. Just let us do our job,” he said. His measured words had little effect.
Nearby, two women who had seen some element of what had happened, kept their counsel in the company of a Garda liaison officer, waiting to speak to detectives.
Two older women were in tears, but knew little of what had happened. . 7
Word began to spread against the small number of parents present that the older children from the mixed school were being allowed home via the laneway at the back of the school.
Word began to spread against the small number of parents present that the older children from the mixed school were being allowed home via the laneway at the back of the school.
Outside the back entrance, children in distinctive deep blue tracksuit uniforms seemed perplexed in emerging from the wrong side of the building. None seemed frightened, the gravity of what had happened being kept from them by gardaí and parents alike.
One parent told the she had told her son there had been a “big crash” on the square.
Other children were led from the rear of the neighbouring Hotel St George by child liaison gardaí and their parents. The children were being promised hot chocolate by their mum. “It’s a night for it,” she said.
One little boy said, as children of five will, that “a bad man was in with us”. The garda with him agreed.
It is hard to describe the surreality of such an event, when evil — and how else could you describe it? — touches base with the banality of everyday life.
This is an incident not likely to be forgotten however, a fact evidenced by the flurry of messages of solidarity which emanated from the political sphere in the immediate aftermath.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee described herself as “deeply shocked” by the attack, but insisted she had “no doubt that the person responsible will be brought to justice."
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar likewise professed himself shocked, and said his “thoughts and prayers” were with the injured and their families.
Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín took a different tack, describing the horrendous attack as a sign of “a tipping point” in terms of anti-social behaviour around Ireland.
He wanted to know what was being done in terms of Garda numbers on Ireland’s streets, one of the major talking points of last summer, particularly in the wake of a series of assaults on foreign tourists in Dublin’s city centre.
That is one question of many that are likely to emerge from this most horrific of incidents.
Before it can be answered though, all of Ireland will hope for one thing — the welfare of a gravely injured little girl and the woman charged with her care — innocent victims in a moment of madness.
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