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Rapist barricades €450k Dublin home after repeated attacks

Sex offender barricades property after teens throw rocks at window

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A CONVICTED rapist has barricaded his Dublin home following repeated attacks on the €450,000 property.

Our pictures show how sex offender Alan Kiernan has covered the front windows of his home with plywood to protect them from rocks following two separate attacks last week.

Gardai believe local teenagers were behind the incidents of criminal damage — during which the downstairs window of the property in Whitehall, Dublin were smashed with rocks.

When the Sunday World tried to speak with the convicted rapist, he declined to comment before hurrying inside the property and locking the front door behind him.

A neighbour confirmed that Kiernan put the board up to cover the windows in recent days.

“Look,” he said, “most of the people around here know about him and know what he is. People would be happier if he wasn’t living here — if he was gone.

“But, by the same token, people don’t want this happening either. A house with boarded up windows is hardly a good advert for the local community, is it?

“You can see everyone walking or driving by, slowing down to have a look. And this is a nice area. It’s settled and there wouldn’t normally be much trouble here.

“Like I say, people would be happier with him gone but most people wouldn’t be happy with his windows being put in either.”

Kiernan, who lives a short distance from the Holy Child National School, has had his home targeted on a number of occasions in the past.

In June 2020, he received head injuries after being attacked, possibly with a statue from his own front garden.

In July 2019, a major garda investigation was launched after a petrol bomb was thrown through a window of Kiernan’s home in a 1am attack, causing major damage to the front of the property.

And in 2014, it emerged that he had been involved in a number of clashes with local teenagers over his sickening past, which resulted in threats of violence against him.

Kiernan has convictions for sexual offences relating to two separate cases.

In May 2005, he was jailed for three years at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court after the court he responded to a text message sent accidentally by a 15-year-old girl, and then started a sexual relationship with her.

Kiernan pleaded guilty to unlawful carnal knowledge of the girl between December 1, 2001 and December 31, 2002, and criminal damage to a vehicle on December 1, 2001.

Garda Pat Star told Pauline Walley, prosecuting, that the girl tried to send a text message to her mother, but sent it to Kiernan, as his number differed by one digit from her mother’s.

She did not know Kiernan, but he responded and they communicated for some months.

He arranged to meet near her home, outside Dublin.

Garda Star said Kiernan and the girl were undressed together in Kiernan’s car at a shopping centre when a car pulled in nearby.

Kiernan got out and argued with the driver, who left to go shopping, only to return to find his four tyres slashed and a scrape down the side of the car.

The driver complained to gardai and CCTV footage of the event was found, from which gardai identified Kiernan, and suspected he was with an underage girl.

Garda Star said the girl was contacted by gardai and she admitted the relationship with Kiernan. She said he never admitted to then being 37 years of age.

Detective Garda Star said Kiernan was sentenced to seven years for rape in 1991. This conviction was thrown out and Kiernan had a retrial.

He was convicted again and received a five-year sentence, which was appealed and suspended in 1998.