Galway Bay fm newsroom – A Carraroe-native former teacher and convicted sex offender has been jailed for another three years for sexually abusing three pupils.
63 year old Seosamh O’Ceallaigh, also known as Joseph Kelly, continues to deny abusing the children at Scoil Colm in Coolock, Dublin and rejects the guilty verdicts of the jury.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that as well as being a teacher in Dublin, he was also heavily involved in Irish language colleges in the west of Ireland.
Seosamh O’Ceallaigh of Beal An Daingin, Carraroe was convicted by a jury last month of sexually abusing or indecently assaulting the three boys at various locations including in the classroom, in his car and on school trips between 1977 and 1994.
He had denied the charges.
Due to the law in place during the earlier abuse, the maximum sentence available for those offences was two years.
He is currently serving a ten-year term imposed last year for grooming, raping and sexually abusing a young girl between 1982 and 1992.
Prosecuting counsel Paul Carroll presented evidence that O’Ceallaigh was responsible for first aid in the school and used this as an opportunity for abuse.
O’Ceallaigh abused a third child on a school trip to Galway when several schoolboys were staying with a relative of O’Ceallaigh’s one night.
Defence counsel Patrick McGrath said he is limited in what he can say in mitigation as O’Ceallaigh does not accept the verdict of the jury.
He submitted that his client has a large number of health problems including heart disease and depression and said that he retains the support of his wife.
Judge McCartan noted that the teacher didn’t deny the allegations himself in court but instructed his counsel to accuse the victims of lying during cross-examination.
The three year term imposed yesterday will begin after he completes his ten year sentence.
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