A 36-year-old Limerick man with more than 30 previous convictions, including one for rape, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.
Gardaí told the Central Criminal Court that Andrew Fitzgerald was an active criminal with a reputation for violence - usually with knives.
Fitzgerald, of St Ita's Street, St Mary's Park, Limerick, had denied murdering Rory Burke (25), at Little Glentworth Street, Limerick, on April 27th, 2004.
The trial heard evidence that Fitzgerald had admitted stabbing Burke following a drink-fuelled row at a party in a basement flat that spilled out onto a city centre street.
However, in the witness box Fitzgerald said he had only retaliated when he had a flashback of sexual abuse he claimed he had suffered as a child after the deceased had tried to kiss him.
The trial also heard evidence from the State Pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, who carried out a post-mortem on Mr Burke.
Dr Cassidy concluded that the victim had died following a single stab wound to the heart, although there were several other slash wounds on the body which could also have been caused by a knife.
A jury of nine men and three women returned the unanimous guilty verdict yesterday evening after just under three hours of deliberations.
Following the verdict, Det Garda Gerry Doherty gave evidence that Burke was the eldest in a family of four children from the Corbally area of Limerick and had been educated locally at St Munchin's College.
Fitzgerald had 31 previous convictions for a variety of offences and many of those convictions related to the possession of knives.
One of his convictions followed the robbery at knife-point in Limerick of a schoolboy who was collecting money for charity, the court heard.
He was also convicted of assaulting and slashing three homeless people with a knife in Limerick in the space of one week.
At Northampton Crown Court in England in 1995 he was sentenced to seven years in jail after he was convicted of rape, and he was placed on a sex offenders' list.
A younger sister of the murder victim, Ms Sandra Burke, spoke from the witness box on behalf of her family about the tragic loss they had suffered.
She said their lives would never be the same again, and they had all experienced a huge void.
Unlike his killer, Rory would never have known what to do with a knife, she said.
The Burke family had to deal with the stigma of Rory's murder, but were happy that justice had now been done, the court heard.
Mr Justice Carney imposed a mandatory life sentence for murder, backdated to April 27th, 2004.