Soldiers honoured for role in tackling terror attack at barracks
Defence minister Helen McEntee, with left to right, Father Paul Murphy, Private Dylan Geraghty, and Private Ciara Shanahan in Renmore Barracks, Co Galway. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA
Just as Private Dylan Geraghty was about to fire a fatal shot at a knife-wielding attacker, the thought popped into his mind that he could manually tackle him to the ground.
That split-second decision meant the soldier did not take the life of what turned out to be a 16-year-old boy.
It demonstrated remarkable maturity for Pte Geraghty, who was only three years older, and reflected his army training on how to deal with high-stress situation.
The juvenile he neutralised was attempting to kill Fr Paul Murphy at Renmore Barracks in Galway city on August 15, 2024.
Fr Murphy, the Defence Forces' chaplain, who was wearing casual clothes at the time, was driving his car back to the barracks.
Read More
It was the first known Islamist-inspired terror attack in Ireland.
The boy, who had converted to Islam and radicalised online, subjected the priest to a sustained attack for over a minute and a half with an 8in serrated hunting knife.
A video of the attack, which spanned a distance of 25m, was seen in court later and showed the determination of the boy to kill. Such was the ferocity — inflicting seven deep wounds to both arms of the chaplain — the youth drove his blade right through the roof of the car a number of times.
His assault only ended when Pte Geraghty, from Galway, manhandled him to the ground and, along with Corporal Daniel Padden, from Mayo, and restrained him.
Both Fr Murphy and the judge that subsequently sentenced the boy to eight years for attempted murder said the attack could have been fatal were it not for the quick and effective intervention of three soldiers on duty at the barracks that night.
Joined by Pte Ciara Shanahan, the three soldiers and Fr Murphy were given the rare Defence Forces’ honour of Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) last month. It is traditionally bestowed after recipients have passed away.
At Renmore Barracks this week, the three soldiers talked about that horrific night.
Pte Shanahan, then aged 21 and from Limerick, was on gate duty, staffing the entrance into the barracks.
“I wasn't even meant to be on duty that day,” she recalled. “I was covering for a friend. It was actually lovely weather. There was plenty of, as usual, people coming to look at the barracks. So you have a chat with loads of people.”
She said it was only when it was getting dark that she noticed a young male, with a beard, peeping around the corner of the entrance and glancing into the barracks. She presumed it was another food delivery.
She said it was only when Fr Murphy drove up the gates and stopped his car at the barrier that she saw the male again.
“He came and he asked you [referring to Fr Murphy] something like, ‘can I have a minute with you, or can I speak to you’, or something along those lines. And you, being the very chatty person that you are, you rolled down the window, delighted to have a chat. And that's when he started to attack.”
Pte Shanahan said the window only rolled two thirds down, which gave the chaplain a bit of a shield. “And your car was automatic," she said. "You, I think, pressed the accelerator, and kind of rammed through the gates. The attacker was still holding on to the car, and that's when I called for help.”
She said she could see the attacker had a knife but he was on the other side of the car and the windows were tinted.
Pte Shanahan said she tried to distract the assailant but didn’t have anything to hurl at him. She managed to throw stones at his direction.
She said Pte Geraghty and Cpl Padden “sprang into action” and that she shouted at them that the attacker had a knife.
Pte Geraghty said he was first alerted by the crash at the gate. “I immediately alerted the guard commander, Corporal Padden, I gave him a sitrep [situation report] of what was happening — ‘there’s car coming through the gate, we might have an assailant’. We go out. By the time we left the Guard Room the car was at a halt.”
He said they both came around the rear of the car on the driver’s side and from the back corner of the car had the attacker in their line of sights.
“We issued a verbal warning, which had no effect," Pte Geraghty said. "We then issued warning shots [five in all] which also had no effect. The assailant continued attacking Fr Murphy.”
Pte Geraghty knew what the next stage was: “The thought came into my head was, ‘Right, what's going to happen now is we're going to need to use lethal force stop the attack’.”
He said the safety of his rifle was off.
“Then a last minute, last second, thought popped into my head, ‘Since we came out here, we've issued a verbal warning, we've issued warning shots the assailant hadn’t looked in our direction at all'. So I am on the right side of Corporal Padden, out of the assailant’s peripheral vision. I just said, ‘I bet you anything I could get behind him, and he wouldn't even know I was there'. So I just let Corporal Padden know, I said, ‘Hold off a second. I'm going in’.
"And the decision made, I turned to sling the rifle to the rear and then I flanked the assailant, and I was able to get behind his rear, and I was able to remove him from the car.”
Cpl Padden said Pte Geraghty used his strength and height to pull the attacker over his shoulder and literally sat on him and “secured” him.
“It was a nerve-wracking moment for about four seconds until Private Geraghty got behind him," Cpl Paddem said. "But, again, it was done in a very controlled way. I had the individual in my sight the entire time. If he had turned around to attempt to stab Private Geraghty, lethal force would have been used, regardless.”
He said they also searched a bag the assailant had on his back.
Cpl Padden said that while this was an unprecedented incident in a barracks, training prepares them on how to act.
“The army is very good at getting you thinking in stressful situations, so that if anything like that did happen you don’t freeze. So when they put you in a stressful situation, ‘this is A, B, C, D, how you deal with something’. And if you get into a stressful situation, if you go by these rules, it usually works out.”
Pte Geraghty said he felt he was “in control” during the incident: “We were in control of the situation and it was our decisions that determined the outcome on the night and I was happy enough with the decisions that were made.”
Asked if he thought about the incident much, Pte Geraghty said: “Often enough, I reckon, yeah, especially in part from getting the DSM as well, it obviously plays on your mind, it's a big part of your career to get it as well.”
Cpl Padden said: “It's in the back of your mind, but, at the end of the day, that's why the guard is situated exactly where it is there, so if something like that did happen, that the reaction to whatever's happened could happen quickly.”
He said they didn’t know at the time the assailant was a juvenile, saying it was dark and that he was quite large. Once they secured him, they could see he was young.
Cpl Padden said that when they heard what age the attacker was, they still would have to behave the way they did given the threat.
He said he was “delighted” to get the recognition of the DSM, adding that he was “very happy” for Pte Geraghty and Pte Shanahan.
At the ceremony, in front of defence minister Helen McEntee and chief of staff, Lieutenant General Rossa Mulcahy, Pte Geraghty received the DSM with honours, Cpl Padden with distinction, and Pte Shanahan and Fr Murphy with merit.
Cpl Padden said he is “more vigilant” about the attack.
“Anytime I'm doing something, like trying to figure out what's the worst thing that could happen, I try and plan around it. I know it might never happen again, but it's good to plan around these things.”
He said the experience gives him “confidence” in his abilities and added: “It gives me confidence that the other individuals are trained correctly when they come through training.”
Pte Geraghty, now based in Collins Barracks, Cork, said it made him realise that Ireland was not immune to these threats.
“I think it opened my eyes to the fact that, regardless that we're a neutral country, there are enemies of the state out there, and there are people that do seek harm to do damage to this country," he said.
"Now we have to be vigilant for that and ready for it also. And like I said there, just because we're neutral doesn't mean we're not a target. As Corporal Padden said vigilance and a state of readiness.”
He added: “We've seen a lot of it in Britain, so, God forbid it does become a common currency, I hope not. I think it just made me feel that there is more now, now than ever, a need for a high quality police force, high quality army, high quality first responders, more now than ever, to be honest.”
Fr Murphy described some of the circumstances that helped him were not “fortuitous” but a “blessing”.
He said that when he pulled up at the gate his attacker came towards his car, asking to have a word.
“I put down the window, it’s an automatic window, it stopped two thirds the way down, for some reason, I don't know why.”
It was an automatic car as well so when the attack started his foot came off the brake and the car started to move forward allowing him to drive through the barrier.
“It's not always possible to drive through the gates, at that moment in time it was possible. But if circumstances had been a little bit different, there's bars going to the ground, and Ciara was already vigilant enough to have those up, so if they were in the ground at the time, then I wouldn't have been able to drive through. The process of opening the gate had begun.”
Fr Murphy said he doesn’t remember the boy saying anything to him during the attack.
“But I spoke to him, and as he was stabbing me, I said, ‘What are you at, what are you at?’ And the knife was in his hand, so I grabbed his wrists, because I knew if I grabbed the knife, it would go through my hands. He had the advantage of being outside the car. He was able to pull back, and then he came at me again.”
He said he stopped the car a few times to try and shake him off, but didn’t work.
“When we got to the stopping point, then I opened the door to push him away. He pushed the door back in and started stabbing me again. Then I actually got my two feet onto the door and pushed the door out with my feet, that pushed him back, but when he came back again, it was to an open door, so I actually got my two feet onto his chest and pushed him out. But he kept coming back anyway but then Dylan took him down.”
Fr Murphy, from Waterford city, said that he got an insurance assessment on his car there was over €29,000 worth of damage.
“The motor assessor said he actually stopped in his tracks when he saw this [the puncture holes], one of the strongest parts of the car at that side of the roof, stabbed... with extreme force.”
He said he was “so grateful that the lads had not shot him, for their sakes as much as his”, adding that Pte Geraghty was only 19 at the time.
He said the following day he could have seen the headline “Irish soldiers kill 16 year old with mental health issues”.
Fr Murphy said: “You’d have a lifetime of wondering should I have killed him, did I do the right thing or the wrong thing. I am so glad the lads are so professional to be able to do what they did with presence of mind in that quick situation without going with more force than was necessary – they were entitled to do it absolutely. They could have killed him no questions asked, but the fact that they didn’t, showed a better mode of soldering and a more professional soldering.”
Reflecting on what might have driven the boy to such a ferocious attack, Fr Murphy said: “One of the things that is important for people to realise — there's still a misconception out there that this was some foreigner who came into our country because of open borders, and brought with him this, this notion of killing, and that's not the case.
“The point is that parents in Ireland need to be aware that your child who's in his room – and I'm not trying to vilify his parents — but like, if you have your child in his room, and he's online the whole time, and he has flags up about Isis, and he has a notebook that he is colouring in with beheadings and all that kind of stuff, there's an issue."
He added: “Ordinary parents need to be aware of where their kids are at. This stuff happens, and there is a lesson in that for people. Sometimes we can be so caught up in our own stuff that we forget about the rest, and we still have responsibilities for our children and people.”
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
