November 23rd, 2023, was already a date etched in our nightmares, the day any illusions we held about ourselves went up like a burning Luas.

The images that will stick with us – more so than the rioting, the looting, the impromptu army on motorised scooters – are the ones that emerged during Riad Bouchaker’s trial for the attempted murder of three young children.

The collage of horror and humanity includes a mother sprinting desperately from Temple Bar to Parnell Square to find her five-year-old daughter, bloodied and apparently lifeless, being worked on by paramedics. She knew it was her child by her pink backpack and runners.

It includes the little children who remained standing at the railings outside their school as a man swung a knife at them, even as their childcare worker screamed at them to run, because waiting by the railings is what little children are trained to do. One small girl wet herself in sheer terror.

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Violence against women and children is a daily occurrence in Ireland, so mundane it takes the horror of a 36cm carving knife plunged into a child’s heart on a bright winter afternoon to stop us short. Riad Bouchaker, who was convicted last week........

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