Residents shocked at Dublin murder

Residents of Ballyfermot in west Dublin said they were in shock yesterday after the murder in the early hours of Saturday morning of local man Martin Kenny (22).

Mr Kenny was shot in the upstairs bedroom of his girlfriend's house on Ballyfermot Parade, after a gunman smashed a glass panel in the front door and burst into the house.

Mr Kenny's girlfriend yesterday left a single red rose outside the house.

Gardaí erected a tape barrier to keep onlookers away but the smashed panes of glass in the open front door were clearly visible. Windows in the upstairs front room were open and the lights were on.

As neighbours stood outside their homes in groups of two or three yesterday afternoon, the sprawling former corporation estate was quiet. A lone Garda stationed outside the house made no comment other than to confirm the deceased had been removed.

Neighbours passing the house paused to read the inscriptions on the floral tributes at the foot of the garden wall and discuss the killing. None of them wanted to be identified. One young man who was passing the house with his girlfriend said he knew the deceased. "It wasn't his house - his girlfriend lives there," he said before moving across the street to talk to other local people.

A few doors along a woman told The Irish Times the dead man had been asleep shortly after 5am when the killer burst in. "He just smashed the door and run up the stairs and killed him. Right in front of his girlfriend, he just killed him like a dog and ran off."

The woman added that Mr Kenny was "only a young fella in his twenties. He wouldn't have been a bad fella. Nobody knows what this was about. We are all in shock around here. He wasn't shown any mercy, that's for sure."

A spokesman for the Garda Press Office said that while the deceased would have been known to the force for "minor things" he was not of "major interest" to them. Gardaí continued to carry out house-to-house interviews in the area yesterday and have appealed for anyone with any information to come forward.