Gardai investigating the death of John Maguire, the man stabbed to death at his home on Ormond Square in Dublin on Monday afternoon, said last night a weapon had been found but they were still trying to establish if it was the one used in the attack.
A postmortem was carried out yesterday on the body of Mr Maguire.
Mr Maguire (51) was well-known in Dublin pub circles having run several bars in the city centre over a number of years. He shared his house on Ormond Square with Jim Hynes, chief operations officer at the charity Concern.
Mr Maguire was found dying behind his partly open front door and there were no obvious signs of a break-in at the house, leading to speculation that he may have known the person who attacked him.
The attack happened at lunchtime and gardaí have appealed for information from anyone who saw any suspicious activity in Ormond Square and surrounding areas between 11am and 2.30pm on Monday or any taxi drivers who may have picked up a fare in the area.
The Garda Commissioner, Martin Callanan, said he was confident Mr Maguire’s killer would be caught. “It would be an impossible situation to ban knives and sharp objects as we all know, so it’s a question of people being reasonable in how they conduct their business. Public order and crimes against the person are on the way down and let’s hope we can keep it that way,” he said.