{"id":483290,"date":"2026-06-04T20:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T20:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/483290\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T20:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T20:34:10","slug":"man-convicted-over-threats-to-simon-harris-and-family-withdraws-appeal-against-jailing-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/483290\/","title":{"rendered":"Man convicted over threats to Simon Harris and family withdraws appeal against jailing \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man who threatened to kill or cause serious harm to T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris <\/a>and his family in an Instagram message has been jailed after withdrawing an appeal against the severity of his sentence.<\/p>\n

Patrick Grealish <\/a>(50) pleaded guilty last year at Derrynea District Court in Connemara to one charge of making an online threat to kill or cause serious harm to the Fine Gael leader <\/a>and his family.<\/p>\n

The message was sent on the social media platform Instagram on August 4th 2024 when the Wicklow TD <\/a>was Taoiseach.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Galway man jailed for four months over online threats to kill Simon Harris and harm familyOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

At the sentence hearing in February, 2026, Judge Fiona Lydon imposed an eight-month sentence on Grealish of Garra\u00ed An Choirce, Lettermullen, Co Galway. The final four months were suspended.<\/p>\n

The judge said threats of violence <\/a>against public figures have become more frequent and have a \u201charrowing impact\u201d on victims and their families.<\/p>\n

Grealish <\/a>\u2013 who has 70 previous convictions \u2013 appeared at the District Court appeals sitting of Galway Circuit Court on Thursday. Barrister Ernie Whyte, instructed by defence solicitor Michael Cunningham, confirmed the defendant was withdrawing his appeal.<\/p>\n

Grealish, an only child and full-time carer for his mother<\/a>, withdrew the appeal after making arrangements for someone to mind the 87-year-old, who has dementia.<\/p>\n

Circuit Court judge Brian O\u2019Callaghan struck out the appeal and affirmed the order of the District Court.<\/p>\n

Four months of the sentence were suspended on the condition he keep the peace, be of good behaviour and refrain from alcohol or other intoxicants.<\/p>\n

Grealish entered his own bond of \u20ac250 to abide by those conditions for one year.<\/p>\n

The defendant became emotional when he thanked the judge before being led away to commence his sentence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who threatened to kill or cause serious harm to T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris and his family in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[60276,60277,61,60,43,60278,60279],"class_list":["post-483290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-elected-representative","tag-galway-district-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-patrick-grealish","tag-threat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}