A 28-year-old Dublin man has been sentenced to 18 months in prison in New York City after pleading guilty to sexual assault.

Luke Hanahoe was accused of the rape of his housemate in a Brooklyn apartment in July 2014, however he later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.

The Irish Times reports that Hanahoe’s female housemate alleged he got into her bed and she awoke at 4am and realised someone was raping her. The woman said she asked Hanahoe to stop but he continued and held her head down.

Hanahoe, who had been working as a bartender in New York, was charged with first-degree rape and faced 25 years in prison. He claimed he was so drunk he could not recall the incident or the events surrounding the incident and then later pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of sexual assault.

Papers submitted in a request for bail claimed Hanahoe had suffered a series of concussions while playing rugby and suffered blackouts while drinking.

Hanahoe is the son of Tony Hanahoe, the three-time All-Ireland winning Dublin footballer. In court he was described as the son of a “famous Irish football star”. He was also described as being of a “well-known, well-established” family.

Hanahoe will serve his sentence in Rikers Island prison, among its 14,000 prisoners.