DUBLIN — The local archbishop asked the people of Dublin to pray for all those affected by a stabbing that injured three children and a teacher at Catholic school in the city center of Ireland’s capital.

“It was with utter disbelief that I heard the news of the horrific attack,” Dublin Archbishop Dermot Farrell said in a Nov. 23 statement. I invite the people of Dublin to join me in praying” for those affected, “especially for the recovery of those who have been injured.”

An eyewitness described to state broadcaster RTÉ a scene of terror after three children and their teacher, a woman in her 30s, were stabbed near the school Nov. 23.

The attack occurred shortly after 1 p.m. near Parnell Square, just off the city’s main boulevard O’Connell Street, and within the parish boundaries of St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral.

The three children, who were lining up in front of their crèche prior to the incident, were taken to a hospital. The following day, one of the children, age 5, remained in serious condition. The teacher underwent surgery overnight and was said to be improving but was still in a serious condition. She has been praised as a hero after she stepped in to try to protect the children.

The Garda Síochána, Ireland’s National Police, said the alleged assailant, a 50-year-old man described as “a person of interest,” also was hospitalized.

After the attack, anger soon spread in Dublin and anti-immigrant groups used social media to encourage protests as rumors spread that the alleged attacker was an Irish citizen of North African origin. A night of violence follows that saw officers attacked, 13 stores looted and public buses set on fire. Several officers were injured and 34 people were arrested. Irish police blame what they describe as a “lunatic, hooligan faction driven by far-right ideology” for the violence.

At a Nov. 24 press conference, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris condemned the violence.

“We have seen a group of people that take literally a thimble full of facts and make hateful assumptions and then conduct themselves in a way which is riotous,” he said.

Police expect there will be further such protests.

The stabbing incident happened outside the Irish language-speaking school called Cólaiste Mhuire, which means St. Mary's College.

“An attack like this outside a school, involving innocent victims including children, is particularly distressing,” Archbishop Farrell wrote. “There is no way to escape the pain and suffering it has brought to so many people. We do not expect events like this to happen so close to home,” he added.

The eyewitness told RTÉ that the kids were out walking: “All of a sudden one of them fell to the ground, then another fell to the ground, then another falls to the ground.”

“Then this guy started running past,” the eyewitness said.

The alleged assailant was armed with a knife and fell to the ground whereupon “a load of people jumped on him,” the eyewitness recalled.

Siobhan Kearney who was on the scene told RTÉ, “People were trying to attack the man. So me and an American lady formed a ring around him saying we’d wait on the Garda,” referring to the national police, An Garda Síochána.

The witness said, “The police were on the scene pretty quickly. An undercover garda came running up and intervened.”

A delivery driver, Caio Benicio, originally from Brazil, said he jumped off his moped and smashed the attacker to the ground using his helmet, helping to end the bloodbath, the Independent reported.

The school is located just 1,300 feet from the nearby Dominican priory of St. Saviour’s, which serves as the student house of formation for the Irish province of the Order of Preachers. Dominican Father Conor McDonough, who is based at the priory and ministered in the area for 15 years, told OSV News of the community’s shock.

“The whole community here are praying for all involved,” Father McDonough said.

“It’s all very difficult to process,” he said. “But what's clear to me is that none of today’s events are reducible to simple ideological explanations.”

When people say “close the borders,” Father McDonough said, he thinks of immigrants he knows who are “committed to the common good of this city, who are hard-working, who volunteer to care for Dublin’s homeless, who pray in our church, who love this country.”

When he hears people label the night’s rioters as “far right,” he said he thinks of young people he knows. “I think of their despair, their frustration, their anxiety, their habitual escapism through drugs and momentary thrills,” the priest said.

“Above all I can’t stop thinking about the children … who experienced terrible, traumatizing fear today. Our church is where they come to pray. It's where they make their first Communions and where they’re confirmed,” Father McDonough said.

“In our church — in their church — accompanied by the sound of sirens, we prayed for them, for the emergency services, for the people of our parish, old and new, for justice, and for peace,” he added.

Michael Kelly writes for OSV News from Dublin.