Nathan O’Neill sentenced for fatal Clare nightclub stabbing

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Nathan O’Neill was sentenced to ten years, with the final 12 months suspended for three years, for the manslaughter of Jamie Higgins. The sentence leaves nine years to be served in custody. Mr Justice Paul Burns imposed it at the Central Criminal Court.

The proceedings were reported on 24 April 2023. Higgins was stabbed at the Shannon Knights nightclub in Shannon, County Clare, in the early hours of 18 March 2018.

O’Neill pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter. He also pleaded guilty to causing serious harm to Michael Shannon at the same place on 18 March 2018.

A jury acquitted O’Neill of murder and found him guilty of manslaughter in December 2022, following his second trial. His first trial, in early 2022, ended when the jury could not reach an agreement.

The judge set a 14-year headline sentence for manslaughter and reduced it to ten years after considering O’Neill’s early guilty plea, cooperation with gardaí and genuine remorse. He also imposed seven years for the serious harm offence. The sentences were concurrent and backdated to 1 April 2022, when O’Neill first went into custody.

The judge said introducing the knife was a substantial aggravating factor. He also said there was evidence that O’Neill had a prior history with Higgins and was in fear of him. O’Neill told gardaí he took the knife from a car for protection after an earlier altercation.

At an earlier sentencing hearing, Detective Sergeant Kevin O’Hagan agreed with defence counsel Alice Fawsitt that there was an allegation Higgins had punched O’Neill earlier that night. He also agreed that, immediately before the stabbing, O’Neill was jabbed in the face, held by Higgins and Shannon, and put in a headlock.

O’Neill had previous convictions for making a threat to kill and possessing a knife. Higgins’s mother, Sharon Higgins, told the court that she struggled every day following her son’s death.