Limerick hurler Kyle Hayes to carry out community service after avoiding jail for nightclub attack

KYLE HAYES HAS avoided jail, as the All-Star Limerick hurler hs been ordered to carry out community service instead of a prison sentence.

Hayes was back in court today, less than 24 hours after he was named man of the match in Limerick’s 16-point defeat of Cork in Munster senior hurling championship.

Sitting in the dock at courtroom 4, Limerick Circuit Criminal Court, Hayes waited silently for confirmation he would serve 180 hours of community service in lieu of three months in jail, as previously indicated by judge Dara Hayes.

After confirming the order, however, the judge warned Hayes he would be going to prison if he committed further criminal offences.

Last April, the judge indicated he would impose the community service order in lieu of Hayes serving three months of an 18-month suspended jail sentence previously imposed on him.

The suspended jail term was imposed on Kyle Hayes after a jury convicted him on two counts of committing violent disorder which occurred both inside and outside the Icon nightclub, Limerick, in 2019 – charges he denied at a trial in 2023.

Today, the judge reminded Hayes that all of the relevant legal “obligations and requirements” on the hurler had been “explained” to him. The judge warned that “non-compliance” with the order would see the hurler sent to jail.

Addressing Hayes, the judge said: “If there is non-compliance you will be brought back before the court and the (three month) sentence will be imposed.”

Hayes looked at the judge and replied: “Yes, judge.”

The judge said he would make “no order” on Hayes’s second conviction for violent disorder, in respect of the same night at the nightclub in 2019.

The terms of the judgement order, specifically, where and when Hayes will be starting his community service, were not dislocated in court.

Judge Hayes said the hurler must complete the community service order within 12 months from today.

Hayes’s barrister, senior counsel Brian McInerney, confirmed to the court that the probation service had deemed the hurler suitable for community service in lieu of the jail sentence.

“A suitable service has been selected and all other matters have been satisfied,” McInerney told the court.

Hayes, (26), of Ballyahsea, Kildimo, Co Limerick, appeared as part of long-standing “Section 99 Re-entry” proceedings.

The hearing was initially triggered after Hayes engaged in dangerous driving at Mallow, Co Cork, four months after the violent disorder concurrent suspended sentences of 18 months and two years were imposed on him in March 2024.

On 14 July 2024, Hayes was recorded by a Garda overtaking nine cars in a row on a stretch of the N20 Cork- Limerick dual carriageway, whilst driving 55km/h above the 100km/h speed limit.

Hayes subsequently lost an appeal against the driving conviction on 12 March 2025, for which he was given a two-year driving ban and fined €250.

Previously summarising the events from the Icon nightclub, Judge Hayes said the Limerick hurler was one of two men who “aggressively approached” self-employed carpenter, Cillian McCarthy, and that Hayes was one of a group of four males who later on “attacked” McCarthy inside the nightclub.

The judge said two gardaí gave evidence at Hayes’s trial that they saw the hurler kicking a man lying on the street outside the nightclub, but the judge said there was no evidence before the court that the man on the ground was Cillian McCarthy.

The judge said the trial jury acquitted Hayes of a third charge, assault causing harm to McCarthy. He said Kyle Hayes had paid €10,000 in damages to McCarthy as part of the terms of the suspended sentences imposed on him.

Judge Hayes said sworn testimony by Kyle Hayes’s father, Liam Hayes, who told the court that he depended on Kyle to help him run their family farm after he underwent heart surgery, had not assisted nor swayed him in its final judgement.

Written by David Raleigh and posted on TheJournal.ie