{"id":601940,"date":"2026-07-24T12:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T12:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/601940\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T12:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T12:16:11","slug":"former-christian-brother-to-be-sentenced-for-sexually-abusing-boys-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/601940\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Christian Brother to be sentenced for sexually abusing boys \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A 90-year-old former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/christian-brothers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/christian-brothers\/\" target=\"_blank\">Christian Brother<\/a> is to be sentenced on Friday for sexually abusing boys in St Patrick\u2019s CBS primary school, Portarlington, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/offaly\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/offaly\/\" target=\"_blank\">Co Offaly<\/a>, in the early to mid-1980s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Liam Coughlan was previously jailed in 2023 for the sexual abuse of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/primary-level\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/primary-level\/\" target=\"_blank\">primary school<\/a> students in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/kilkenny\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/kilkenny\/\" target=\"_blank\">Kilkenny<\/a> in the 1970s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Coughlan, who appeared by video-link from prison during a trial that started earlier this month in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/criminal-courts\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/criminal-courts\/\" target=\"_blank\">Circuit Criminal Court<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/portlaoise\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/portlaoise\/\" target=\"_blank\">Portlaoise<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/laois\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/laois\/\" target=\"_blank\">Co Laois<\/a>, had pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of indecent assault against nine former students who attended the school on Patrick Street, Portarlington.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Last Friday, the jury took just an hour to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/crime-law\/courts\/2026\/07\/10\/former-christian-brother-convicted-of-sexual-abuse-of-boys-in-offaly-school-in-1980s\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/crime-law\/courts\/2026\/07\/10\/former-christian-brother-convicted-of-sexual-abuse-of-boys-in-offaly-school-in-1980s\/\">find Coughlan guilty<\/a> on all of the 31 counts they were asked to consider.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Judge Keenan Johnson will sentence Coughlan, who has significant health problems and is still serving the 4\u00bd-year sentence he was given for the Kilkenny crimes, on Friday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Victim impact statements will also be heard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 90-year-old former Christian Brother is to be sentenced on Friday for sexually abusing boys in St Patrick\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,2512,23810,18,13,14,6,19,17,1328,11,12,15,16,5,14234,7,8],"class_list":["post-601940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-catholic-church","tag-christian-brothers","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kilkenny","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-portlaoise","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116974910436670822","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}