{"id":656419,"date":"2026-10-16T09:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T09:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/656419\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T09:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T09:56:09","slug":"judge-tells-man-caught-driving-at-184km-h-you-would-have-made-mincemeat-of-a-child-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/656419\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge tells man caught driving at 184km\/h: \u2018You would have made mincemeat of a child\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A Co <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/cavan\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/cavan\/\">Cavan<\/a> man who drove at almost twice the speed limit has been told by a judge that if he had his way he would \u201cban him for life\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Michael McCooey (25), of Duncollig, Lisboduff, Cootehill appeared before Judge Raymond Finnegan at Cavan <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/district-court\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/district-court\/\">District Court<\/a> on Thursday charged with dangerous driving at Killyduff, Virginia, Co Cavan on September 3rd. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/garda-siochana\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/garda-siochana\/\">Sgt<\/a> Damien Galligan told the judge  that McCooey had been recorded driving at 184km\/h. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Finnegan disqualified McCooey from driving for two years and fined him \u20ac500.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"> He asked McCooey what would have happened if a child had crossed the road at the time of his offence. McCooey said he would have been driving \u201ctoo fast\u201d to stop in time. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cYou would have made mincemeat of [the child],\u201d the judge said. \u201cAt 184km\/h, you would not have control of your vehicle. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIt\u2019s people like you that [have] road deaths are the way they are. They think the law doesn\u2019t apply to them. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cYou were at about two times the speed limit,\u201d he said. \u201cIn your hands a car is a very, very dangerous weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"> The judge said McCooey, a self-employed electrician working in Dublin, had been caught \u201cthis time\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He advised McCooey to consider using the next two years to think about how lucky he was that he did not kill someone while driving in such a manner. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Defence solicitor Damien Rudden submitted that the offence occurred on \u201ca straight stretch\u201d and that there was no traffic at the time, but that the road conditions were \u201cwet\u201d and that his client was \u201ca bit heavy on the pedal\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cA bit?\u201d Finnegan asked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The court heard McCooey has lodged an appeal. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Co Cavan man who drove at almost twice the speed limit has been told by a judge&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15218,5721,1346,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-656419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cavan","tag-district-court","tag-garda-siochana","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656419","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=656419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}