Seven held in relation to Traveller's murder

Gardaí today arrested seven people in connection with the murder of a Dublin traveller.

John Cunningham Jnr, 26, from Killtilawn Way, in Tallaght, was beaten and stabbed by a group of men in Clondalkin on November 4 in a suspected vigilante attack.

He died from his injuries two days later in Tallaght hospital.

Gardaí today arrested five men and two women, aged between 18 and 31, in Clondalkin and in Cellbridge, County Kildare.

A Garda spokeswoman said two of the men and the two women had been arrested under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act and can be held for up to 72 hours. The remaining three men were arrested under section four of the Criminal Justice Act and can be held for up to 12 hours.

They are being detained at various garda stations in Dublin.

Mr Cunningham was part of a large traveller family and had seven sisters and three brothers.

He was married for five years, with two sons aged two and four, while his 25-year-old wife is pregnant with a third child.

He was beaten with a snooker cue and stabbed a number of times with a long bladed knife at the junction of the Fonthill Road and the New Nangor road on Friday at around 8.15pm last November.

His family angrily rejected suggestions that he had been attacked because he had been involved in a burglary.

Both the snooker cue and the long bladed knife were recovered by gardai shortly after the attack and a 19-year-old man and a 22-year-old man were arrested. They were later released without charge.