Speaking to Irish broadcaster RTÉ, he explained he was changing clothes in a dressing room in Zara when he first realised something was wrong.

“I could hear what sounded like a stampede of cattle coming running through the shop,” he told the Saturday with Colm Ó Mongáin, external programme.

“Obviously I had the curtain closed in the dressing room so I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear everything.

“Next thing somebody pulled back my curtain and said: ‘Get out, get out, get out. You need to go, you need to go. There’s stabbing, someone’s stabbing’.”

Staff working in the clothes shop ushered as many customers as they could into a storeroom in the basement and they managed to bolt the door.

“Everyone was in such a state of panic. I think everyone was really, really just in such distress and overwhelmed, and everyone was screaming and crying,” Mr Naughton said.

“It was absolutely horrific and there were even kids as young as four years of age in the room with us,”

He explained that he and other customers were not aware of where the threat was coming from or how many people were involved, because when they fled to the basement they did not have time to look back to see what was going on.

“I couldn’t even reach for my phone at this stage because there were so many of us crammed into the room,” he explained.