{"id":568740,"date":"2026-07-26T09:36:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T09:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/568740\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T09:36:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T09:36:20","slug":"disgraced-soldier-cathal-crotty-officially-released-from-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/568740\/","title":{"rendered":"Disgraced soldier Cathal Crotty officially released from prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

Served a year and seven months for Limerick assault on Natasha O’Brien<\/p>\n

Paul Healy and Danny De Vaal<\/p>\n

12:16, 25 Jul 2026<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Cathal Crotty <\/p>\n

Disgraced soldier Cathal Crotty has been released from prison.<\/p>\n

He was freed from Castlerea Prison on Thursday. The former soldier, who brutally beat Natasha O’Brien in a case that shocked the country, served a year and seven months<\/a> of a two year jail sentence he received last January, the Irish Mirror reports. The attack on Ms O’Brien took place in Limerick in 2022.<\/p>\n

Crotty’s early release was down to standard remission and good behaviour behind bars. Crotty, who was booted out of the Defence Forces when he was convicted, had initially been handed down a fully suspended sentence in 2024 – but after public outrage the DPP successfully appealed it last January, arguing it was unduly lenient.<\/p>\n

\"Natasha<\/p>\n

Natasha O’Brien(Image: Ayesha Ahmad)<\/p>\n

The former Private Crotty randomly attacked Ms O’Brien in a shocking incident in Limerick city in 2022. Crotty beat Ms O’Brien unconscious after she asked him to stop shouting gay slurs – and later boasted about it on social media writing: “Two to put her down, two to put her out.”<\/p>\n

When contacted earlier this month about his upcoming release, Natasha said: “I most definitely have not been kept informed by the authorities. I’m sure it won’t come as a shock to anyone, that as a victim I’ve been left in the dark yet again. This is the first I’m hearing of it! Imagine that.”<\/p>\n

When contacted, the Irish Prison Service it “does not comment on individual prisoners cases”.<\/p>\n

Sign up here for our daily newsletter<\/a> and get breaking news and top stories from Cork Beo direct to your inbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Served a year and seven months for Limerick assault on Natasha O’Brien Paul Healy and Danny De Vaal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54,1115,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-568740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568740","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=568740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}