Gardaí renew appeal for information about Maynooth assault

Kym Owens (18) was attacked just metres from her student accommodation on Sunday

Kym Owens from Castleblaney, Co Monaghan who  sustained life-threatening head injuries during an assault in Maynooth Co Kildare last weekend. Photograph: via Facebook
Kym Owens from Castleblaney, Co Monaghan who sustained life-threatening head injuries during an assault in Maynooth Co Kildare last weekend. Photograph: via Facebook

Gardaí have renewed their appeal for information in relation to the serious assault of an 18-year-old first year university student in Maynooth.

Detectives are trying to establish if Kym Owens was followed from her home town of Castleblaney, Co Monaghan, to Maynooth, Co Kildare, before being attacked just metres from her student accommodation.

The Maynooth University student sustained life-threatening head injuries when she was assaulted while walking to her accommodation in the Moyglare Abbey Estate on the outskirts of Maynooth at 8.30pm on Sunday.

Ms Owens remains in a stable condition at Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown in Dublin.

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No arrests have been made and a spokesman for the Garda appealed on Saturday for anyone with information to come forward.

Ms Owens had just got off the bus she had taken to Maynooth from Monaghan town before she was attacked.

Garda sources have said Ms Owens, who suffered multiple head and facial bone fractures and major soft tissue injuries in the attack, had travelled on a private bus service.

It is a weekly service that departs Monaghan town at 6pm and reaches Maynooth about two hours later. It stops to pick up additional passengers at Castleblayney and Carrickmacross in Co Monaghan.

It then stops again to collect passengers at Ardee, Co Louth, and at Collon and Slane, in Co Meath. From Slane, the service goes straight to Maynooth, where it makes three stops, before terminating at Maynooth North Campus.

Gardaí are now trying to trace an estimated 40 people who were on the bus at any time during its journey from Monaghan to Maynooth.

They are trying to establish if the attacker was a passenger who got off the bus at the same location as Ms Owens and attacked her.

It is believed CCTV is available from inside the bus.

Colin Gleeson

Colin Gleeson

Colin Gleeson is an Irish Times reporter