'Shit f**king Irish': Witness describes remarks before Parnell Square stabbing attack

Witness tells Central Criminal Court she encountered a man behaving aggressively hours before the Parnell Square attack

Candles and tributes left following a vigil held outside Gaelscoil Cholaiste Mhuire school on Parnell Square. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

A woman told a court she heard a man saying "shit Irish, shit fucking Irish" in an "aggressive" manner as he walked along a Dublin city-centre street near the location where a knife attack later that afternoon left several children injured and one girl with severe brain damage.

The trial of Riad Bouchaker, 52, also heard that when Gardaí opened a rucksack found at the scene of the stabbing, they discovered packaging for a 24cm carving knife.

Mr Bouchaker, of no fixed address, is on trial at the Central Criminal Court charged with the attempted murder of two girls and one boy, and with assault causing serious harm to a care worker, at Parnell Square East in Dublin city on November 23, 2023.

He is further charged with assaulting two other children and an adult male, and with producing a knife in a manner likely to intimidate.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. His trial before a jury of nine men and three women is expected to last up to five weeks.

Patricia Byrne told the court on Friday that she was walking along Mary Street in Dublin when she heard a man being "quite aggressive in his words".

When she looked to her right, she heard him saying: "shit Irish, shit fucking Irish".

As she walked on, she heard him say the same thing to a group of English, Welsh and Scottish tourists.

The tourists were laughing, she said, so she told them it was "not funny".

Ms Byrne went into a shop and emerged a short time later to see the same man approach two women with buggies. She walked on a little further and he then moved out of her view, she said.

She recalled that the man was wearing dark clothes and said she got only a "quick glance" at him.

Ms Byrne identified herself and the man she saw in CCTV footage shown to the court.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Tony Hunt and a jury of nine men and three women.