Man drunk at Tullamore train station had been in jail for six years

A MAN who served a jail sentence for his part in an aggravated burglary where a 70-year-old was beaten by men armed with a shovel and a bat was back in court on public drunkenness charges.

Dylan Coughlan (27), with an address at Eiscir Riada, Cloncollig, Tullamore and formerly of Armstrong Grove, Clara, pleaded guilty to two charges at Tullamore District Court.

Sergeant Justine Reilly told the court the first public drunkenness charge arose after gardai received a report of a man intoxicated at Tullamore train station on September 17, 2026.

Sergeant Reilly said Mr Coughlan was arrested because he was a danger to himself.

A similar charge was brought after an incident on October 5, 2026 in Spollanstown, Tullamore when Mr Coughlan was again intoxicated and tried to interfere with gardai while they were dealing with a different matter.

Sergeant Reilly said the accused had 60 previous convictions and had been sentenced to prison in December 2022 for aggravated burglary.

In 2023 he received further sentences for other offences along with a 12-year driving ban.

The latest convictions would result in other matters, which had been the subject of a suspended sentence, being re-entered at Tullamore Circuit Court.

Patrick Martin, defending solicitor, said Mr Coughlan was a man with “quite a chequered history” and when he was released from prison he had nowhere to go.

Mr Martin handed a letter from the defendant's GP in to Judge Andrew Gubbins and added that Mr Coughlan had €200 to offer the court.

The man was not currently working but was not long out of prison and he had not come to garda attention since the incidents now before the court.

Mr Coughlan had been raised by his grandparents and had fallen out with them but that relationship had since been restored.

Judge Gubbins noted that the offences before the court were both public drunkenness and he imposed a €300 fine and ordered that €200 be paid to Merchants Quay forthwith.

The judge also ordered that the matters subject to a suspended sentence should be re-entered for the Circuit Court.

In 2022 Mr Coughlan and another man were found guilty of aggravated burglary and assaulting John Sheerin, causing him harm, at the 70-year-old man's home at Kinclare, Clara on September 1, 2019.

A jury had also found Mr Coughlan guilty of assaulting another man, Derek Tuite, on the same date, at his residence in Railway View, Clara.

Mr Coughlan was sentenced to 10 years in prison with the final two years suspended.

At the sentencing hearing Judge Keenan Johnson described Mr Sheerin as an elderly vulnerable man who was afraid to go out at night and feared being on his own at home as a result of the raid.

Judge Johnson said the two guilty men had armed themselves with a shovel and a bat and carried out both assaults at night.

After the burglary of Mr Sheerin's home and the assault on him the two men went to Mr Tuite's house, gained entry through a window and assaulted him in his bed.

They had been drinking with Mr Tuite the previous evening at the house in Railway View and left, asking the victim to leave the door unlocked for them on their return.

Judge Johnson said the offences were “despicable” and noted that Mr Coughlan and his accomplice both had serious issues with drug and alcohol abuse.

He sentenced Mr Coughlan to 10 years in prison with the final two years suspended.

Mr Coughlan, who was in bail at the time of the assault and burglary, was in custody during the trial and his sentence was back dated to September 9, 2020.

At the trial Mr Sheerin said €700 was then taken from his wallet when the men forced him to go to his kitchen with a knife at his back.

Mr Sheerin said he was awoken at about 5am by two men who came into his bedroom and demanded money.

He said they made him lie on his stomach and stood on each side of the bed beating him with shovels.

While he could hear the men's voices and knew what they were saying, he could not see their faces because they were masked with either balaclavas or women's tights.

In January 2023 a consecutive six-month sentence was imposed on Mr Coughlan at Tullamore District Court for committing public order offences in Banagher on May 21, 2020.

(Funded by the Courts Reporting Scheme)