Evan Fitzgerald: How a young man’s foolish decisions ended in a shopping centre shooting

Evan Fitzgerald was not a criminal or fanatic, but his boyhood interest was military history. His misguided attempt to buy a gun led to a Garda swoop and a court case was looming when he took his own life

On June 1, 2025, Evan Fitzgerald took his own life in the Fairgeen shopping centre, Co Carlow. His upcoming court case for firearm posession  had been weighing heavily on his mind. File picture 

Two of Garda Bryan Dunne’s colleagues were running out to the Hyundai i40 patrol car when he arrived for work in Carlow Garda Station. It was approaching 6.30pm on June 1, 2025.

He asked what was going on and was told there was a shooter in the Fairgreen Shopping Centre. The garda hopped into the back of the patrol car, and they took off at speed.

As they arrived at the shopping centre, people were running from it. The patrol car pulled up, and the gardaí got out.

Dunne spotted the person at the centre of this emergency near the main entrance to the complex.

“I could see a man I now know to be an Evan Fitzgerald to my right-hand side, moving to his knees and holding what I believe to be a shotgun pointing towards his own chin,” the garda said in a statement.

“I immediately opened the door of the patrol car and ran for cover at the corner of the shopping centre.

“While looking around the corner, I could see Evan Fitzgerald on his knees holding a shotgun, pointed up into the air, and he was leaning on the barrels of the gun.”

Scattered around the armed man were multiple shotgun cartridges. At this point, another garda, an armed detective, began moving towards Evan Fitzgerald with his gun drawn.

“There were multiple instructions shouted at Evan Fitzgerald to drop the firearm,” Garda Dunne recalled.

“Evan Fitzgerald discharged one shot from the gun on himself and fell to the ground.”

The 22-year-old is believed to have died immediately. His death was officially declared hours later.

Evan Fitzgerald was not a criminal. He was not a religious fanatic. Neither did he harbour extreme or violent political views.

He had, through some foolish decisions, got himself into a scenario that was going to have a major impact on his life.

More importantly, from his point of view, he had brought his two best friends with him, and they now also had a major problem.

In the year before his death, Evan had expressed guilt and responsibility over what he had, in his opinion, visited on his friends. However, major questions remain over how he had arrived at a position where he felt compelled to shoot himself in such a public manner.

On August 10, a coroner’s inquest provided a body of evidence about his life and death.

Early life

Evan was born in Melbourne, Australia, in January 2003.

His parents, Kilkenny native Brian Fitzgerald and Aideen Burke from Kiltegan on the Carlow-Wicklow border, had immigrated there some years previously.

Two years after Evan’s birth, his sister was born, and she was still a baby when the couple decided to return home. The family of four stayed in rented accommodation while a house was being built in Kiltegan.

They moved into their new home in 2008. Evan attended the local Tynock National School and went on to secondary level at Scoil Chonglais, Baltinglass.

School wasn’t always easy. He was diagnosed with dyslexia. He got extra support in primary and secondary school, and became quite proficient at reading.

“In first and second years in secondary school, he won competitions for the amount of books he read,” his mother told the inquest. “He discovered my Kindle and he was reading from that.”

He really enjoyed history as a subject. “He also liked science,” his mother said. “He had no interest in GAA. He did the Scouts and really liked them.”

He was supervised or assisted in state exams in the system that provides extra supports for some students.

Although there were reports that he had mental health difficulties, nothing specific was diagnosed.

In 2019, his parents split up. He remained with his mother in Kiltegan, and his father moved to Kilkenny. Father and son continued to have good relations and interaction.

Apart from history, Evan’s other interest during his teenage years was guns.

“He was always into guns, knives, military equipment,” his mother related.

It really peaked during covid, I think. He used to go to military historical shows where there were battle re-enactments. On holidays, he would love going to museums because he loved history.

“Really [during covid], when he was here with nothing to do, I think he got really into history, and his two best friends were into video games.”

He and his friends, Shane Kinsella and Daniel Quinn Burke, would muck about with the replica weapons.

“They would shoot at each other with the airsoft guns, which I didn’t approve of,” his mother said. “They would shoot at targets.”

When Evan was 16, he asked his mother to help him get a licence for a firearm. She refused, saying there would be no guns in her house. She was unsure whether he pursued it any further.

Unbeknownst to his family, he was pursuing the idea of owning a gun illegally.

Covid had an impact on him. When he returned to school afterwards, his mother felt he wasn’t making a great effort. She got grinds for him in biology and maths.

After the Leaving Certificate, he was accepted for a course in sound engineering in Sligo, but decided not to accept it.

He did a PLC course for emergency service workers and joined the Order of Malta.

Evan worked at a variety of jobs over the following years, the longest spell spent employed by a steel fabrication company, where he worked on welding and spraying for shed manufacturing.

Gardaí investigate 

Life was continuing for him as he grew up and moved into his 20s.

Then, around late 2023, he found his way to the dark web online and began inquiring about buying weapons.

His online activity was spotted by the international crime agency Interpol, which contacted An Garda Síochána in February 2024.

At this point, a decision was taken by gardaí to set up a sting operation where Evan would be put in touch with officers posing as arms dealers.

The undercover officers arranged to meet Evan in the Drumcondra area of Dublin. They agreed a price of €2,700 with him for an automatic rifle and a semi-automatic pistol.

The “dealers” told him to get a burner phone, which would ensure their contact with each other would not be traceable.

This, it later emerged, was just to give the young man the impression that he was dealing with real criminals.

Much later, after Evan shot himself, gardaí made it known that they did not believe that the 22-year-old was acquiring the guns to engage in criminal activity.

Yet the operation was conducted in a manner that is ordinarily employed when dealing with serious criminals or even terrorists. One source familiar with the case told the Irish Examiner that they didn’t know precisely who Evan was or if he was acting on behalf of other elements.

After the initial meeting, they put surveillance on him.

“As it turned out, we had no record of him, no dealings with him,” this source said, as reported in the Irish Examiner.

Evan Fitzgerald in Order of Malta attire. File picture

Despite that, they went ahead with the “controlled delivery” of the weapons, which were to be suitably disabled from use.

On March 2, 2024, Evan and his two close friends met with the undercover gardaí near Straffan, Co Kildare. The weapons were handed over for a cash payment.

Minutes later, as the three men were driving home, the elite emergency response unit swooped on the car.

The windows were smashed in, and weapons were pointed at the three inside. This is standard procedure when dealing with serious criminals.

One possible reason why such dramatic tactics were used in this instance might be that while the undercover officers had been dealing with Evan alone, now there were two others accompanying him, and the gardaí did not know for a fact that they were not armed.

Following lengthy interviews, a decision was taken to charge all three with possession of weapons.

They appeared before Judge Desmond Zaidan at Naas District Court.

Initially, the gardaí objected to bail, but after conditions were applied, they consented.

After Evan’s death, sources in An Garda Síochána initially briefed the media that they had objected to bail, yet Judge Zaidan had granted it.

The judge retrieved the digital audio recording of the hearing and publicly corrected the record.

One of the bail conditions was that the three men have no contact or interaction before the trial.

Evan returned home to Carlow, but life was never the same.

Protecting friends

“He felt so guilty for his two friends — I mean, they were all in it together, but I think it was mostly Evan,” his mother told the inquest.

“He really wanted to protect his friends, so I don’t know how much involvement each person had. After the court case, he was so upset.”

He lost his job and wasn’t eager to go looking for another locally.

“He didn’t want to work here because people knew him and what had happened. He also didn’t want to bump into Daniel’s family as he felt he let them down.”

He attended a counsellor, but only for a few sessions.

He had a girlfriend at the time who was living in England. They conducted their relationship across the Irish Sea, but it petered out.

His mother suggested he might want to head down to Kilkenny to his father, where nobody would know what had happened and what might await him with the case. His father was delighted to have him.

“Evan and I were very close,” Brian Fitzgerald told the inquest.

“I tried my best to get Evan to focus on matters outside of his upcoming court case. It did play heavily on his mind.

He knew he was trying to take the blame for everything, to exonerate his friends. I believe he took his own life so he would take the court case with him.

During all this time, his bail conditions decreed that he was allowed no contact with his two friends.

“He felt really isolated,” Evan’s father said.

“No girlfriend. No friends. I think he was completely angry with himself.”

Life wasn’t getting any easier as he waited for the court case and the uncertainty that lay there.

One night when he came home from work, his father noticed bruises on his son’s face.

“He said he fell when he was finishing work, but when I saw his face the following morning and suspected he had been in a fight, I learned later that he may have done that to himself.”

During this period, Evan divided his time between his father’s and grandmother’s homes in Kilkenny, and back with his mother in Kiltegan.

John and Roisin Griffin were close family friends of Evan’s mother, Aideen Burke. Their respective families, including the Griffins’ two daughters, knew each other well.

John Griffin works as an officer with the National Parks and Wildlife Service. He has licensed firearms through his work, which he kept secure in different safes in his home.

'I tried my best to get Evan to focus on matters outside of his upcoming court case. It did play heavily on his mind', Evan's father Brian Fitzgerald told the inquest into his death. File picture

Around 11.45am on June 1, 2025, Evan showed up at the Griffins’ home.

He told Roisin he was looking for a cable John might have, but gave up after a while.

“Evan was in good form when present in the house,” Roisin Griffin told the inquest.

“He chatted with me and the girls. He told the girls they were lucky to have such a great dad. He told them stories about how John had brought him fishing when he was younger and that John was a great fisherman.”

John Griffin arrived home while Evan was there.

“I know Evan very well,” Mr Griffin said. “He is also a friend of the family.”

Evan and John’s older son from a previous relationship grew up together. “Evan would be familiar with the layout of our house and has been a regular visitor throughout the years,” he said.

The family was getting ready for a night away in Tramore, Co Waterford, in their camper van.

“Evan would have become aware at this time that we were going away for a night,” Roisin Griffin told the inquest.

Evan left at 2pm. The Griffins packed and got ready for their excursion. They left their home at around 3.45pm.

At some point after that, Evan broke into the Griffins’ home through a glass door on the first-floor balcony.

He took a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun that had a capacity to fire eight rounds.

The weapon had been securely and responsibly stored, but Evan knew where he could find it.

The shooting

The coroner’s report outlines what occurred in the hours that followed.

Evan arrived at the Fairgreen Shopping Centre in Carlow town at about 6.15pm.

“He entered the shopping centre and fired approximately seven rounds from a shotgun. He went outside the centre, and an unmarked Garda vehicle arrived.

“Evan Fitzgerald kneeled down and pointed the shotgun at his face and fired a shot. He then collapsed to the ground. Death was pronounced at the scene.”

A verdict of suicide was recorded at the coroner’s court.

Among the personal effects found in Evan Fitzgerald’s trouser pocket was a set of rosary beads.

“I really loved him,” Brian Fitzgerald told the inquest of his son.

“The court case was taking so long it was consuming him,” Aideen Burke told the inquest of her son.

The longer it went on, the worse it became. I think if it was dealt with more quickly, it wouldn’t have gotten to this point.

“The gun that Evan attempted to buy, I feel they packaged as an attractive type of gun because Evan said they were so rare or seemed to think they were special.

“The guards were looking for organised crime people, not foolish Evan with his morbid fascination.”

On April 16, 2026, Shane Kinsella of Tynock, Kiltegan, and Daniel Quinn Burke from Allendale Lawn in Baltinglass pleaded guilty at Naas District Court to possession of a rifle, a pistol, and ammunition on March 2, 2024, near Straffan, Co Kildare.

Both were subsequently handed three-year suspended prison sentences.

The Garda ombudsman Fiosrú has examined two aspects of this case, neither of which were the subject of controversy.

The Irish Examiner understands that Fiosrú is currently investigating the case from a more rounded perspective.

When contacted, Brian Fitzgerald said that he did not wish to comment on anything to do with his son’s case at this point in time.