Gardaí have formally launched a murder investigation into the death of a 31-year-old man after receiving the results of a postmortem, which confirmed he was stabbed a number of times.
The man, who has been named locally as Daniel O’Sullivan, was in Tynan’s Bar on North Main Street in Youghal when a man entered at around 9.50pm on Monday and attacked him.
Mr O’Sullivan collapsed after suffering a number of stab wounds to the abdomen. Emergency services worked to try to stabilise Mr O’Sullivan’s condition for transfer to hospital but while he was en route to Cork University Hospital he suffered a cardiac event. It’s understood he was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital’s emergency department.
A postmortem by Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster confirmed Mr O’Sullivan suffered stab wounds and gardaí immediately upgraded their investigation to a murder inquiry.
The man who attacked Mr O’Sullivan fled the pub after the attack but gardaí were able to identify him from witness statements.
A 29-year-old man presented himself at Midleton Garda station on Tuesday morning and he was arrested for questioning.
The suspect is being detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, which allows gardaí to detain suspects for up to 24 hours before they must be charged or released without charge.
Gardaí are investigating whether the fatal assault on Mr O’Sullivan is linked to an earlier incident in Youghal on Monday night when a man in his 20s was assaulted by a number of men.
A native of Mallow, Mr O’Sullivan was known to gardaí and had served five years in jail after he was convicted in 2016 of the manslaughter of French homeless man Vincent Morgaine in Cork.
Mr O’Sullivan, then aged 22, pleaded guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to unlawfully killing Mr Morgain from Brittany on Lower Oliver Plunkett Street in Cork on September 10th, 2015.
At the sentencing hearing, the court heard that Mr O’Sullivan had become upset and expressed remorse for his actions when he was arrested and questioned about the fatal assault.
Judge Sean Ó Donnabháin sentenced Mr O’Sullivan to eight years in jail with three years suspended. Mr Morgain’s sister Marie Thomas expressed hope the young man would turn his life around.
“I am happy with the sentence – he got the sentence that he deserved and rightly so, but it is not the sentence which preoccupies me most,” said Ms Thomas speaking through an interpreter.
“I hope that Daniel avails of the services in Cork Prison because I really want him to show real remorse for what happened and for him to get back in life and maybe help others,” she added.
More recently, in 2018, probation officer Sharon Kennedy told a court that Mr O’Sullivan was a young man with great potential who needed to address his heroin addiction to realise that potential.
Defence barrister Dermot Sheehan BL confirmed at the same hearing his client was suffering from a heroin addiction, and said his client recognised he needed to address his drugs problem.
“He understands he needs treatment for heroin. He wants to get on with his life, free from the chains on him at the moment – his addiction to heroin, begging on the street and homelessness.
