{"id":506883,"date":"2026-06-18T22:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T22:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/506883\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T22:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T22:38:12","slug":"former-teacher-told-he-might-die-in-prison-at-sentencing-for-child-sex-abuse-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/506883\/","title":{"rendered":"Former teacher told he \u2018might die in prison\u2019 at sentencing for child sex abuse \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former schoolteacher who sexually abused 19 young boys in Donegal<\/a> over a 25-year period has been jailed for 6\u00bd years.<\/p>\n

Patrick Sharkey, now 83, stood emotionless in the dock as he was put behind bars for a total of 132 charges.<\/p>\n

Some victims waved at their attacker as he was led away by prison officers.<\/p>\n

Sharkey, originally from the Clonmany area in Donegal and most recently with an address in Belfast<\/a>, abused his victims in Co Donegal over a period from 1970 to 1995 \u2013 during which time he was a teacher at St Joseph\u2019s High School in Coleraine.<\/p>\n

Many of the victims were students at the school when Sharkey preyed on them, with one victim just seven years of age when the abuse began.<\/p>\n

In sentencing Sharkey at Donegal Circuit Court<\/a> on Thursday, Judge John Aylmer said the offending, which he described as \u201cvery invasive\u201d, represented \u201ca gross breach of trust on all occasions\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said that a further aggravating feature was the length, extended period of time and age of his victims, who were between seven and 16 years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe offences can only be described as very calculated, premeditated and predatory in nature,\u201d Aylmer said. \u201cIt involved a significant amount of grooming of the victims.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharkey was before the court on signed guilty pleas for all 132 charges, which were a mixture of indecent assault and sexual assault. One of the complainants was the subject of 59 of the charges.<\/p>\n

Some offending occurred when children travelled from school to take part in extracurricular activities and stayed in Sharkey\u2019s parents\u2019 house in Clonmany, Co Donegal, while other offences took place when they were on trips to Dublin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Aylmer said the \u201csheer number of complainants and large number of offences took it into the upper end for sentencing\u201d.<\/p>\n

The signed guilty plea offered significant mitigation, while Aylmer noted Sharkey co-operated with the investigation by travelling to this jurisdiction and making \u201calbeit limited\u201d admissions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a significant risk that by imposing a prison sentence that you might die in prison,\u201d Aylmer said. He sentenced him to seven years in prison with the last six months suspended.<\/p>\n

Det Garda Johnny Gallagher outlined the evidence in the case at a sentencing hearing in May. <\/p>\n

One victim, who was the subject of 59 counts, told detectives: \u201cPretty much every night I was in Clonmany with Patrick Sharkey he sexually abused me\u201d. He said he was \u201cso shocked\u201d and said he \u201cdidn\u2019t know what to do\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatrick Sharkey took something out of me that never returned,\u201d a further victim had said.<\/p>\n

Another of Sharkey\u2019s victims said he has been trying to block out the incidents for 40 years, while another of his victims told garda\u00ed: \u201cI was just terrified and I pretended to be asleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharkey was interviewed on three occasions by detectives and made only \u201cpartial admissions\u201d, the court heard. The court heard that Sharkey later told investigators: \u201cSome time in the last six months I\u2019ve come to the conclusion that I shouldn\u2019t have touched those people at all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former schoolteacher who sexually abused 19 young boys in Donegal over a 25-year period has been jailed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4501,13553,51250,1485,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-506883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-belfast","tag-circuit-court","tag-criminal-courts","tag-donegal","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506883","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=506883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}