ALISON CHAWKE HAS been released from prison after serving 28 days of her sentence for her part in an assault on two men at a luxury Limerick hotel in 2023.

The 41-year-old was jailed alongside her brother Bill Chawke for attacking the two men without provocation in July.

The two siblings are the daughter and son of prominent publican Charlie Chawke. The court heard they had brought “embarrassment” on their family.

The CCTV recordings of the assault were played in court, showing the brawl spreading from the residents’ bar out to the hotel’s front reception area.

At one point in the front foyer of the hotel, Alison Chawke knelt down beside one of the victims and “locked onto” his face with her teeth.

Ms Chawke bit him on his left cheek, said the prosecuting barrister. She also kicked the man into the side of his head. She later admitted to gardaí that she was not justified in her awful behaviour on the night.

Ms Chawke was sentenced to two years and two months in the female wing of Limerick prison, with the final 14 months of the sentence suspended after taking into consideration her guilty plea and previous good character.

However, she has now been released under the community return programme.

It is an incentivised scheme for the supervised release of qualifying prisoners who complete unpaid community work as a condition of their early release.

Among reintegration and reparation reasons, the programme was developed to reduce prison overcrowding. Prisoners must apply for the scheme and be deemed eligible. 

The female wing of Limerick prison, as all Irish prisons do, operates well above its capacity. In November 2024, it was operating at 144% of its capacity.