Defence Forces chaplain repeatedly stabbed tells his attacker he forgives him

Alison O’Riordan

A Defence Forces chaplain who was repeatedly stabbed by a teenage boy motivated by "a radicalised Islamic mindset" today told his attacker that he forgives him, with the priest and the defendant later embracing in the courtroom.

Delivering an emotional victim impact statement on Thursday, Father Paul Murphy told the sentencing judge that: "My only desire is that the young man before you would learn to see the error of his ways and, when the time comes, return to society to make a positive contribution to the world as a wholesome, happy, and loving person".

Fr Murphy said if it wasn't him that night, it would have been someone else, and he was convinced, "without a shadow of a doubt", that he was "the right person, in the right place, at the right time". He told the court: "Out of all the members of our Defence Forces, I was best placed to take the knife."

He added: "I thank God every single day that the knife tore through my skin, and not through the body of one of my comrades. I consider it an honour and a privilege to carry those scars until my dying day". He said "Heaven wasn’t ready for me that night".

Turning to the 17-year-old boy in the dock as he read his statement, Fr Murphy, a native of Waterford City, said that he was "in the business of forgiveness" and offered "the young man standing accused before me, the forgiveness that will hopefully help you to become a better person. I believe you are 17 now so you will hopefully have another 80 years of living on this earth".

"My hope and prayer is that you will use whatever resources are put at your disposal, in prison or beyond, to learn a better way of living and that you will use your energy and your talents to make our world a better place for all people to live. Life is for living and for loving, and, I promise you, your life will find its ultimate joy when you live honourable and love generously," continued the priest.

At this point, the teenage boy, who had his parents sitting near him, interrupted Fr Murphy and said aloud: "I'm sorry". The pair were seen to embrace after today's sentence hearing, when the priest talked to his attacker in the dock.

The boy appeared at the Central Criminal Court today for his sentence hearing, having pleaded guilty last February to the attempted murder of Fr Murphy (52) at Dún Uí Mhaoilíosa, Renmore Barracks in Galway on August 15th, 2024. The defendant was 16 at the time of the attack and cannot be identified due to his age.

The victim, a popular chaplain with the 1st Infantry Battalion, suffered multiple stab wounds in the attack while he sat in his car. He was treated for his injuries at University Hospital Galway. Fr Murphy has been a priest for almost 29 years and has ministered in the army for over 11 years, the court heard.

Today's sentencing hearing was told that the boy had "lunged" at the priest with a hunting knife and stabbed him repeatedly. The priest suffered "multiple severe lacerations" to both his arms, and there were seven wounds in total. The court heard that Fr Murphy's jeep got 20 metres inside the gate of the barracks, but as the vehicle moved, the teenager moved with it, trying to stab Fr Murphy.

The boy told gardai when arrested: "I did it to protest the Irish Defence Forces and their work in Mali and all the stuff for Islam", the Central Criminal Court heard.

The priest said while he can ultimately forgive his attacker, the teenager had committed "an appalling crime", which had offended the State, the Irish Defence Forces and "every single soldier who has walked through the gate of our barracks, because it could have been any one of them who was stabbed".

Fr Murphy told the boy he hoped he learned to see "the error of his ways" so that when the time comes he could return to society to make a positive contribution to the world and become a "wholesome, happy and loving person".

The victim of the attempted murder told the court he was just an ordinary priest and was honoured to bear the wounds that scarred his skin but would have been much happier to have avoided "the limelight of this process".

The sentencing hearing for the teenager also heard today that he had carried out a "totally indiscriminate attack" which could have been inflicted on any member of the defence forces.

During today's sentence hearing, Detective Sergeant Paul McNulty agreed with Michael Delaney SC, prosecuting, that gardai seized the boy's laptop, iPad and phone and got production orders for his email and social media accounts.

They found "a lot of the content was suggestive of a radicalised Islamic mindset" and supportive of the Islamic State and the terrorist group ISIS. Some of the content was very graphic, with videos of beheadings and other acts of extreme violence from various propaganda ISIS videos. The teenager had a particular interest in British ISIS activist 'Jihadi John', the court heard.

Items seized by detectives in the boy's bedroom included a poster with Arabic writing saying "God is great", the Islamic state flag and sketches depicting beheadings. The defendant denied to gardai that the sketches were his.

The youth had confirmed to gardai he had "reverted" to Islamic faith at 15 years of age and had writings in a notebook of Islamic prayers and how to be a devout Muslim. The boy also regularly attended Friday prayers at a mosque.

The boy's defence counsel, Sean Gillane SC, said that there was nothing in his client's life or forensic history to alert anyone that he would be involved in an offence of this nature. "Over a period of time, he began to become part of an online community even though it was the opposite of a community in any real sense," he added.

The defence barrister said the boy, who is on the "autism spectrum", was vulnerable to the material he found on the internet, which led to increasing radicalisation and a poisoning of his belief system. He said it ultimately led to his catastrophic and misconceived attempt to seek some sort of revenge on the Irish Defence Forces for the misconceived conclusion he had arrived at about Mali, which was inspired by others.

Addressing the judge in mitigation, Mr Gillane said: "If you did hear him [the boy] say sorry during the victim impact statement, he is sorry and I ask that you deal with him as leniently as you possibly can".

Mr Justice Paul McDermott remanded the boy to Oberstown Detention Centre until April 29, when he will be sentenced.