A MAN HAS been questioned by gardaí in connection with the stabbing to death of a mother-of-seven in Castlebar, Co Mayo, early yesterday.
The woman who died was Carmel Marrinan (61) from Blackfort, Castlebar, a nurse who cared for the elderly at the HSE-run Sacred Heart Hospital in Castlebar.
The death has sent waves of shock and sadness through the local community.
Cllr Michael Kilcoyne, the mayor of Castlebar, called for public support last evening for the Marrinan family in their “time of deepest tribulation”.
It is understood that Ms Marrinan was attacked after she got out of bed in the early morning hours to investigate a noise in her home and sustained a number of stab wounds which later proved fatal.
She was taken by ambulance at about 4am to Mayo General Hospital, where she was pronounced dead a short time later.
Supt William Keaveney, who is heading the Garda investigation, said when gardaí arrived at the scene just before 4am they found the injured woman in the hallway of her home. She was being treated by ambulance personnel.
“She appeared to have stab wounds to her hands and other wounds to her body,” he said.
The man, aged 29, was arrested under section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act but was later released from custody.
According to gardaí he was subsequently admitted to hospital where he was receiving psychiatric care last evening.
The two-storey house at Blackfort, about a mile from Castlebar town centre, was sealed off early yesterday prior to an examination by experts from the Garda Technical Bureau.
A pathologist from the State Pathologist’s Office in Dublin was on his way to Castlebar last evening to conduct a postmortem.
The dead woman’s husband, a Department of Agriculture employee, and other members of the family were being comforted by friends and neighbours last night.
The Marrinans have seven grown-up children.
Mr Kilcoyne said the community was deeply shocked by what had happened and extended his deepest sympathy to the Marrinan family.
Her neighbours at Blackfort, Castlebar, reacted with disbelief to the circumstances of her death.
“She was a lovely person, a very good neighbour. I would always go over to Carmel and talk to her,” said one neighbour, Bernie Downes.
Ms Downes described her neighbour as very caring and said she was liable to drop in any time by just walking in the back door.
“One of the last times she was over she brought her grandchild to show me,” Mrs Downes recalled. “She was just so thrilled. It was her first grandchild.”
Gardaí are following a definite line of inquiry into the death.