An 86-year-old man will be sentenced next week for indecently assaulting two young children and raping one of them 60 years ago.

John Joe Kiernan from Forthill, Arva, Co Cavan, pleaded guilty to 11 sample counts of indecent assault and one count of rape between 1958 and 1964.

Mr Justice Michael White praised what he described as the "unbelievable courage" of the man and woman who are now in their 60s, but were aged five and four when the abuse began.

He said they were "brutally traduced" at a time in Ireland when no one talked about these kind of things and he praised their courage in coming forward at this point in their lives.

The judge said they were totally and utterly innocent children and he was struck by the overall brutality of the crimes. Kiernan was old and frail now, he said, but the offences took place when he was at the height of his strength as a farm labourer.

He was a strong man and had issued a "spine-chilling threat" to the life of the then young girl.

The judge said Kiernan knew that what he was doing was seriously wrong and was threatening them to make sure they did not tell anyone.

Mr Justice White said if Kiernan was a younger man, he would be facing an immediate custodial sentence.

But he said he would have to take into account his genuine remorse and wanted time to reflect on the matter.

He will impose his sentence next Monday.

Warning: Some readers may find the following report distressing

The court heard that Kiernan was working as a farm labourer for a family.

The children's father was away working for long periods of the year and their mother trusted and relied on Kiernan to help on the farm.

The boy was the eldest of the children and was five years old when he was first abused by Kiernan in a barn.

He told gardaí he was abused on an ongoing basis for most of his early years and the abuse became part of normal life.

The assaults stopped when he went to secondary school, the court heard.

The girl also gave evidence of being abused beginning when she was four years old and of being raped on one occasion. She described Kiernan as a serious blight on her childhood.

She told gardaí that on a particularly cold day her father had told Kiernan to take her to his house and wait until he could collect her on his tractor.

She said Kiernan gave her a drink - possibly of whiskey - and took her into his bedroom.

She said Kiernan's mother walked in while he was abusing her and roared and shouted at him to "get her out of here".

She described how Kiernan threw her to the ground outside the house with the chickens and told her he would bury her with all the other bones around there and no one would find her.

She said what he said caused her great anxiety for many years. He also told her dogs would pull her apart like they were pulling apart a rabbit and no one would know or care.

She described another occasion where she stood up to him and pushed him away when she was around nine years old. She said she got really angry, but Kiernan was laughing at her.

Both the man and woman described how Kiernan would give them chocolate.

The man and woman reported the abuse in 2017. Kiernan had been convicted in 2005 and sentenced to five years in prison, for similar offences against other very young children.

When he was questioned about the crimes in this case, he said he had not sexually assaulted the children but had "just handled them" or "fondled them".

In victim impact statements the man and woman said their childhood innocence had been shattered. The woman said what Kiernan had done had created great turmoil throughout her life.

She said it had been very difficult to tell her family what had happened but it had been healing to be believed.

The man said Kiernan had taken advantage of his mother and he had sad memories about his home. He now felt some relief.

Kiernan is now in significant ill health, the court heard, and suffers from heart disease and diabetes.

His defence counsel, Grainne McMorrow, said he wanted to apologise for the trauma he visited on the man and woman and the impact that has had on their lives since.

She said he had been anxious to take responsibility for what he had done, albeit very late in the day.

Ms McMorrow said Kiernan had married in 1976 and had not offended again after that.

She said he was ashamed of who he had been. She said the greater portion of his life was most certainly over.

Ms McMorrow said her client did not believe he was entitled to forgiveness, but he wanted to say and do anything that would ease their pain and dreadful memories.

She said in his answers to garda questions he did not appear to understand the nature of sexual assault but appeared over time to have gained more insight into the impact of what he had done.

She said he was a man of limited intellectual and emotional understanding.

Ms McMorrow said he posed no risk of re-offending and she suggested he may have been a victim of sexual abuse as a child himself.

She said his mother's reaction to walking in on one of the incidents of abuse showed that these matters were not addressed appropriately in his own family.

She said he was isolated and lonely at the time and had described himself as being not right in the head and sex-crazed.

She said he apologised profusely for the horrors he visited on the man and woman in their early childhood and wished them peace, prosperity and closure.