The Irish Examiner view: Attack and sentence that shocked the nation

Disappointment is perhaps the least of the emotions which has to be applied to this case, which was heard in the same week that Women’s Aid said that it received a record 40,000 disclosures of domestic abuse

Cathal Crotty, aged 22, with an address at Parkroe Heights, Ardnacrusha, Clare, received a three year suspended sentence for assaulting Natasha O’Brien, 24, in an unprovoked attack on O’Connell Street, Limerick.

It’s an indicator of something unprecedented when the Irish Examiner, as it did this week, prefaces an online news report with the trigger warning that some readers may find the details upsetting.

The account of how a 22-year-old serving Irish soldier — Cathal Crotty, of Parkroe Heights, Ardnacrusha, Clare — beat a young woman unconscious in Limerick city centre, and then boasted about it on social media has shocked many people.