‘A nice guy who got on well with everybody’
Former soldier Warren O’Connor was stabbed to death outside the Beeches apartment complex in Donaghmede in north Dublin in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The 24-year-old former Army Private had intervened in a row over noise from a raucous party on behalf of a friend, his pregnant girlfriend and their young son.
The row escalated to a physical altercation and Warren, a talented local footballer, was left with the blade of a kitchen knife stuck in his abdomen.
Yesterday his manager at Killester FC, Joey Graydon, said he had known Warren since the summer when he joined the club from Coolock Town.
“Warren was a big guy, nice guy, really friendly, he got on well with everybody,” Mr Graydon told Today with Pat Kenny. “I never heard Warren have a bad word [to say] about anybody.
“To go and help someone that would be in trouble, that was the kind of fellow he was.”
A centre-back for Killester, he had also played Gaelic football with St Laurence O’Toole’s and had also served with the defence forces from 2003 to 2006.
His manager at Killester said on the field Warren was “very reliable” and always gave his all in training.
His death has shocked many people who knew him, with Joey Graydon claiming Warren was not the type of person to go looking for trouble.
“He had gone into the party apparently to ask them to be quiet, his friend had asked him as well because they had a young baby and they basically told him where to go,” he said.
“So when the altercation arose Warren left and as he left he obviously thought it would probably get worse and he wanted to get that couple out of harm’s way, and that’s the kind of fellow he would be.
“Unfortunately he paid for that with his life.”
