{"id":504973,"date":"2026-06-17T21:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T21:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/504973\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T21:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T21:57:08","slug":"former-army-apprentice-tells-defence-forces-tribunal-he-was-forced-to-eat-cigarette-butts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/504973\/","title":{"rendered":"Former army apprentice tells Defence Forces Tribunal he was forced to eat cigarette butts\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n            A former army apprentice broke down as he recalled being forced to eat cigarette butts by an officer, and how he saw one of his fellow cadets crying in his bed before he later took his own life.<\/p>\n<p>\n            Padraic Lenaghan, a former radio technician cadet at the Army Apprentice School at Devoy Barracks in Naas, told\u00a0<br \/>\n            the <a class=\"contextmenu inlinelink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/maintopics\/defence-forces_topic-5074892.html\" idref=\"X0.2612203866898346\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Defence Forces<\/a> Tribunal\u00a0how the unnamed second lieutenant \u2014 known as 2LTB \u2014 swore in his face and ordered him to eat used cigarette butts from an ashtray after discovering a card game in progress at the apprentices\u2019 dormitory in November 1989.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            Mr Lenaghan recounted to the tribunal concerted abusive behaviour \u2014 bullying, random revoking of weekend leave, and emotional abuse by\u00a02LTB from his induction into the school at the age of 16.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            Of the cigarette incident, Mr Lenaghan recalled 2LTB entering the dormitory and screaming at him to eat the butts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            \u201cHe said put them in your effing mouth, that\u2019s an order. He had a wild, wild look on his face. He said &#8216;chew Lenaghan&#8217;. I just felt if I didn\u2019t the whole platoon will be in so much trouble. It\u2019s the army,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            \u201cI could feel the ashes all around my mouth on my tongue. I got some of them down. He said eat the rest of them. I was just scared like, and feeling so sick, I hid them under my tongue when he got me to open my mouth.&#8221;\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            He said when the officer eventually left he \u201cwent to the toilet and got sick\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            The alleged behaviour of 2LTB was considered at length by the tribunal, which is currently meeting in public to investigate the complaints processes within the Defence Forces, and whether their possible ineffectiveness\u00a0enabled a culture of silence on complaints of abuse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            2LTB has denied all allegations against him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            Mr Lenaghan, who left the Defence Forces in 1997, described how 2LTB had persistently hounded a fellow apprentice, Damien Traynor, until he had a nervous breakdown in 1991.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            \u201cHe was all the time on his back, I was one of them, Damien was another,\u201d he said, adding 2LTB made the platoon do press ups after a five mile run and then kicked Mr Traynor in the ribs while he was prone.\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Death of apprentice\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            On the death of apprentice and Leitrim native Oliver Mullaney, aged 19, in 1991, Mr Lenaghan described how the platoon of 53 teenagers was made to dance after a gun-range examination one Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            \u201cThey made some of them dance together. It was weird, what was the purpose,\u201d he said. &#8220;They got on Ollie\u2019s case, up close in his face, roaring and shouting, &#8216;Mullaney you\u2019re a real old farmer, you\u2019ll never be a soldier&#8217;.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">&#8220;Ollie was a quiet country man, he wasn\u2019t taking it well. I recall Ollie crying in his bed that night. I didn\u2019t see him again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            Mr Mullaney shot himself with his own weapon that weekend in the barracks. Mr Lenaghan said there had been no investigation into the incident that he was aware of, though shortly after 2LTB left the unit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            \u201cEveryone was 100% sure the pressure of this man 2LTB was too much for Ollie,\u201d he said. He said no apprentice had been willing to make a complaint at the time as \u201cbeing in the army and making complaints didn\u2019t go together for us\u201d.\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            He said\u00a0even if he had wanted to complain he wouldn\u2019t have known how.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            Complaints \u201care just completely alien to the army, the whole macho, no complaining army\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            He said he had been deeply moved by the fact no mention of Mr Mullaney was made at the time the platoon passed out in 1992. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            \u201cIt was as if the man never existed. No one said we\u2019re missing one of our friends,\u201d he said.\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            Mr Lenaghan said that if the treatment of the apprentices had been different \u201cOliver Mullaney would be alive. I wouldn\u2019t be here (at the Tribunal)\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former army apprentice broke down as he recalled being forced to eat cigarette butts by an officer,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13308,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-504973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-defence-forces","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504973","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=504973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}