The trouble began around 1:40 pm local time in Parnell Square East in downtown Dublin, next to the Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire children's school. The Irish police -- or "garda" -- say three young children and a woman in her 30s were wounded by a knife-wielding man in his 40s. Two were seriously wounded: a five-year-old girl and the adult woman. 

NOW - Multiple children stabbed near a school in Dublin, Ireland.https://t.co/J82aidU94Y

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The fiend attacked a group of children queued up as they were moving from one scheduled class to the next. "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," said a witness. 

According to some reports, the wounded woman, a school worker, heroically rushed to defend the five-year-old girl, who was said to have been stabbed in the neck. According to a source anonymously quoted by The Irish Independent: 

This all happened in a matter of seconds and after her very brave actions another two children suffered superficial stabbing injuries to their chest and shoulder in what was a frenzied incident. She defended those children with all her strength – all that she was doing was trying to protect those little kids and people in what was is a very built up area in the city centre saw what was happening when they passed the school."