Chip shop row that ended in tragedy

CHILDREN played on bicycles yesterday outside the inner-city fiat where Des Whelan was stabbed. Litter blew across the path along which he staggered. But at the door of his home there was no indication that he had become Dublin's latest murder statistic.

Gardai maintained a heavy presence on the estate throughout the day.

At the corner of the block where Whelan lived, his colleagues in the local Concerned Parents against Drugs group held an impromptu meeting. Although angry, they declined to comment "until the time is right".

Mr Whelan (27) was known locally in Dolphin House as "the crewcut" because of his cropped hair. He was tall, strong and fair-haired and treated with respect more than affection. The few neighbours who said they knew him found him quiet and firm, "a decent enough bloke, but not much of a mixer".

The dead man had been drinking with a friend in a local pub. They went to the take-away where a row started with another man, from a neighbouring block in Dolphin House.

The two knew each other and had argued two years before, when anti-drug activism was at its height and Whelan was one of its stalwarts.

Neighbours said they heard shouting in Block 1 of the south inner-city flats shortly after midnight yesterday.

One man shouted: "I'll f...ing blow you away." It appears that Mr Whelan then climbed the stairs to a third-floor flat in the block. It was here that the stabbing occurred.

Mr Whelan was knifed in the chest but managed to stagger back 100 yards to his own block. He woke up a friend, said to be a first cousin.

An ambulance was called but he died later in St James's Hospital.

A neighbour, Mr Tony Caffrey, said he had worked "on the boats" with the dead man for three years. In the summers, Whelan worked as a caterer on the St Killian 2, between Rosslare and France. There was no work in the winter, and he was sometimes stuck for money.

Mr Caffrey said once he lent the dead man £200 to buy a bicycle for his son.

Outside, two of Mr Whelan's children, Aaron and Adam, played under a sign which read: "Don't wait until it's too late: Support CPAD."

His wife Melanie, give birth to a third child a month ago.