A man who was captured on video stabbing his sister's boyfriend to death has been jailed for life at the Central Criminal Court in Limerick.
It is the first time in the history of the State that a murder case has been heard outside the capital.
The decision was taken to hold sittings of the Central Criminal Court in the mid-west because of the backlog of Limerick murder trials.
Johnny McNamara (31), of Craeval Park, Moyross, Limerick, had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr John O'Sullivan (27) in Moyross on August 13th, 2001.
The life sentence was imposed by Mr Justice Carney.
The jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict.
Mr O'Sullivan died following a vicious early-morning row in which he was stabbed 11 times with a butcher's knife and was left to bleed to death.
At an earlier sitting the jury heard that the accused had armed himself with the knife after he heard his sister, Ms Louise McNamara, being beaten by her boyfriend.
McNamara chased Mr O'Sullivan around Craeval Park to a green area at Pineview Gardens in Moyross where he stabbed him to death, the court heard.
In a statement read out to the court, McNamara had described John O'Sullivan as a friend and had said he had not meant to kill him.
Stills of CCTV footage were shown to the jury during the trial which prosecuting counsel said captured the victim's brutal death and identified McNamara as the man armed with a knife.
The video footage showed the accused man returning to the scene where the victim lay bleeding to death some moments after the row to stab him one final time.
Evidence was also heard from the Deputy State Pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, who said that Mr O'Sullivan had suffered stab wounds to the head, neck, chest, shoulder, arm and back.
At yesterday's sitting the jurors asked to view the video evidence again.
They returned the unanimous guilty verdict after a little over two hours of deliberations.
Det Sgt Jim Ryan of Mayorstone Garda station told the court that McNamara had 14 previous convictions, for assault, larceny and misuse of drugs.
After the sentence was handed down, the dead man's father, Mr Liam O'Sullivan, told the court that his family had been "devastated" by his son's death.
Earlier Mr Justice Carney had reminded the court that he had ordered a bench warrant for the arrest of a prosecution witness, Ms Aisling Bond, who failed to appear at the trial.
"This is unfinished business which is required to be dealt with whether the trial is over or not," he said.