Tadhg Butler pleads guilty to unlawful killing of Michael O’Dwyer

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

Tadhg Butler pleaded guilty to unlawfully killing Michael O’Dwyer on 10 January 2014. The State accepted his manslaughter plea at the Central Criminal Court, and he was remanded in custody until a sentence hearing scheduled for 18 October 2018. The proceedings were reported on 16 July 2018.

The plea followed earlier proceedings: a murder conviction and life sentence were overturned on appeal, and a later murder trial ended with a jury unable to agree a verdict.

Butler told the trial he had accidentally stabbed O’Dwyer while taking a knife from his nephew to prevent him from self-harming. His nephew, Anthony O’Grady, had previously told gardaí that Butler stabbed O’Dwyer. When he gave evidence, however, Anthony O’Grady said he could not remember anything, that he was a drug addict with psychiatric problems, and he accepted that his uncle’s account could be true.