Gardaí investigating the death of a 37-year-old man at a caravan park in Co Wexford last night confirmed he was murdered.
Anthony Cullen, of Hantoon Road, Maudlintown, in Wexford town, died at Burmah Caravan Park at the popular seaside resort of Rosslare Strand. The postmortem examination revealed he died from stab wounds, according to Supt John Roche, who is leading the investigation.
Two men were last night in Garda custody in connection with the murder. One man (22) was detained early yesterday and a 17-year-old was arrested yesterday evening.
Both are detained under Section 4 of the 1984 Criminal Justice Act and can be held for up to 24 hours of questioning. Gardaí were alerted by the ambulance service and found Mr Cullen outside a caravan in the park at 3.30am yesterday.
Mr Cullen, who died at the scene, had suffered serious head injuries.
His body was removed to Wexford General Hospital where, yesterday evening, a State pathologist, Dr Michael Curtis, carried out the postmortem to confirm the cause of death.
Mr Cullen came from a large family in Wexford. Neither he nor the two men arrested for questioning about his death owned the mobile home. It had been rented out for the weekend.
The 22-year-old man detained in connection with the event is also from a large family in Wexford town and is known to the Garda.
The area around the mobile home was sealed off immediately when the body was discovered and remained closed off to park residents last night. Garda forensic experts carried out a detailed examination of the scene, both where Mr Cullen's body was found and the mobile home.
The investigation included interviews with residents of the caravan park. According to a Garda source, many of the mobile homes in the park were empty over the weekend.
Other residents were reportedly unaware of any incident occurring during the night.
Burmah Caravan Park is both a holiday and residential park, one of a number in the resort. It has more than 100 mobile homes and caravans.
Local Wexford Fine Gael TD Paul Kehoe, who was "absolutely shocked" to hear of the death, said such an incident was very unusual in the "very picturesque", quiet and upmarket resort.
Easter weekend marked the beginning of the new tourist season and "from now until September, it will be a busy tourist area", he said.
Rosslare Strand is close to Rosslare Harbour and not far from Wexford town, and is one of the main caravan park areas on the south-east coast.