{"id":527222,"date":"2026-07-01T07:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T07:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/527222\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T07:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T07:44:12","slug":"guilty-plea-over-manslaughter-of-co-offaly-man-who-died-during-stag-party-in-athlone-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/527222\/","title":{"rendered":"Guilty plea over manslaughter of Co Offaly man who died during stag party in Athlone \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A 37-year-old is to be sentenced in October over the manslaughter of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/offaly\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/offaly\/\">Co Offaly<\/a> man who died while taking part in a stag party in 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Se\u00e1n Munnelly, of Irishtown, Athlone, pleaded guilty on Tuesday at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/circuit-court\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/circuit-court\/\">Mullingar Circuit Court<\/a> to the unlawful killing of Paul \u201cBabs\u201d Connolly (48) on Church Street, Athlone on August 13th, 2022. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Judge Cephas Power said Munnelly, who was returned to custody after Tuesday\u2019s hearing, would come before the court again on October 6th for sentencing. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In 2023, Munnelly\u2019s co-accused, David Higgins, of St Paul\u2019s Terrace, Athlone, was jailed by Judge Keenan Johnson for one year for assault causing harm to Connolly and engaging in violent disorder. Johnson described the attack as reprehensible, dangerous and offensive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Det Sgt Kevin Craig told the judge it was a \u201cprotracted assault\u201d involving punches and kicks. Connolly fell to the ground but got up, and was also dragged by Higgins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Craig agreed that Higgins was involved in the attack at an early stage, which was captured by CCTV cameras.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Connolly, from Edenderry, managed to land a number of blows and tried to get to the hotel where he was staying, but was not allowed entry. Later, garda\u00ed arrived and found him unresponsive on the ground, with a female nurse trying to revive him. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The court heard that all parties to the assault had been intoxicated, and that Higgins was not known to Munnelly.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">John Shortt, counsel for Munnelly, told the judge on Tuesday that there would be good-quality CCTV footage to be examined at the sentencing hearing and asked that two hours be set aside for that hearing. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Cathal \u00d3 Braon\u00e1in, barrister for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said victim impact statements would be prepared for October\u2019s hearing. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The judge noted Munnelly\u2019s guilty plea and consented to requests from Shortt for governor\u2019s, probation and welfare reports and an up-to-date urinalysis regarding his client. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 37-year-old is to be sentenced in October over the manslaughter of a Co Offaly man who died&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13553,61,60,43,8286,59],"class_list":["post-527222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-circuit-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-offaly","tag-westmeath"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527222","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=527222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}