Six months’ prison for threatening to burn house

A CASTLEBLAYNEY MAN who appeared at Monaghan District Court on various charges, including threatening to burn down a woman’s house, and assaulting a youth in a local housing estate, has been given consecutive prison sentences amounting to six months.

John Cawley (22) of no fixed abode, and previously of Oliver Plunkett Park, Drumillard, Castleblayney pleaded guilty to a number of offences on December 1 last.

These included threatening a Ms Carmel McArdle that he would set fire to a property known as Wylie’s House, Main Street, Castleblayney, assaulting Carmel McArdle at Emerald Bar, Main Street, Castleblayney, damaging an internal bar door at that premises, the property of Paul Goodman, and being intoxicated in public at while York Street, Castleblayney.

Cawley also admitted that he had been intoxicated while at the town’s West Street on November 20 last.

Separately, a guilty plea was entered in respect of a summons for assaulting a younger man at the Black Island View estate, Drumillard, Castleblayney, on February 16, 2025.

In relation to that offence, Sergeant Lisa McEntee said gardai had been called at 4.55pm on the Sunday in question after a youth reported that Mr Cawley had grabbed him by his jacket collar. The youth in question had presented at the Garda station, along with his mother, to make a formal complaint.

Recalling the incidents on Monday December 1 last, the sergeant said gardai received a report at 9.15pm to the effect that John Cawley was “kicking off” at Castleblayney’s Emerald Bar. While on their way to the premises they saw Mr Cawley in a highly intoxicated state on the town’s York Street.

Threatened

He was arrested for this offence, and when gardaí attended the Emerald Bar, Carmel McArdle stated that Cawley had threatened to cut her throat if she attended his grandfather’s funeral. He had also threatened to burn down her home if she reported this to gardaí, and then struck his elbow off her chest as her pushed his way past her into the pub.

While doing this he swung an internal door off its hinges, Sgt McEntee added.

She also told the court how, at 10pm on November 20, 2025, while outside Digby’s Amusements on West Street, the defendant was arrested after being found intoxicated to the extent that he was considered a danger to himself and others.

The court was told Cawley had nine previous convictions, the last being in September 2025 when he was given two-month sentences for offences including criminal damage and the unauthorised taking of a pedal cycle.

In November 2024 he got four-month sentences for damaging property and threatening to damage property, while in 2022 he received an 18-month suspended sentence for arson.

Drugs

Solicitor Roisin Courtney said her client had pleaded at that earliest opportunity to the offences now before the court. She described him as a person of “limited intelligence” who had abused drugs over the years. He had been in and out or care homes and was a “victim of the system”, Ms Courtney contended.

It was also confirmed to Judge Raymond Finnegan that the defendant had been in custody since December 2, the day after the most recent offences, as he was unable to provide an address as required in the bail conditions.

Imposing sentence, Judge Finnegan handed down a four-month prison term for the threat to set fire to Ms McArdle’s house, describing this as “quite nasty”. A consecutive two-months’ prison was given for the assault on the youth at Black Island, with all the remaining counts taken into consideration on that basis.

The judge clarified that this amounted to six months’ prison in total, and confirmed that the sentences were to be backdated to December 2 when Mr Cawley had been taken into custody. He told the defendant directly that, in effect, this probably meant he wouldn’t be in prison for too much longer.