Troubled, eccentric and moody he may have been. But Mr John Carthy (27) was no madman, according to friends and neighbours of the Co Longford man who was gunned down by gardai outside his home on Thursday.
A single man, he lived with his mother, Rose, at their cottage half a mile outside the rural village of Abbeylara. The two were due to move out of the dilapidated home within a few months into a new house being built on neighbouring land.
A building labourer, Mr Carthy was passionate about sport, particularly handball, and he enjoyed a drink and the company of friends. It was commonly known that he suffered from depression and had undergone psychiatric treatment. Occasionally, he had been admitted to St Loman's Hospital in Mullingar.
Some locals put his problems down to his intelligence. "He was clever but in a strange way," said one friend. "He knew about all sorts of weird subjects."
As a pupil in St Brendan's primary school in the village, and later Granard secondary school, he took part in numerous table quizzes, some of which he won.
In his Junior Certificate year, however, his father, Johnny, died - a tragedy which hit him hard. The anniversary of his father's death was Holy Thursday, the same day the siege ended.
Locals said the date may have contributed to his mood swing, which triggered the incident, but they dismissed the suggestion that he had a death wish. Indeed, while he was barricaded into the house, he told a friend on the phone he had no intention of harming himself or anyone else.
"He was moody. He would be in great form one minute and giving out about everything and everyone the next. But he was never violent," said another friend. Many remarked on Mr Carthy's self-confidence, on how he never apologised for himself even though he knew he was different.
As a sportsman, he was highly competitive, said Mr John Gilligan, a fellow handball player. "He was a guy who believed totally in himself. I remember the year before last when he heard D.J. Carey was coming [for a local competition]. He said `I will take him on and I will beat him as well'. He was like that. He had a very witty character but there was a serious undercurrent to everything he said."
He was said to have been badly affected by an incident in September 1998 when he was questioned by gardai about the burning of a mascot of the local GAA club, which had just reached the senior county final.
Locals said he had been sensitive about the issue, with his sensitivity bordering on paranoia at times.
Mr Carthy was said to have harboured ill-feeling towards local gardai since the incident.
