Prosecution case:Opening the case for the prosecution, Denis Vaughan Buckley SC said that on the day of the killing, Rachel O'Reilly had dropped her two children off to school and creche as normal and returned to the house where she was murdered shortly afterwards.
He said a postman would give evidence of calling to the house, seeing the car in the driveway and finding it odd that the blinds were drawn.
At 1.15pm, Joseph O'Reilly received a phone call in work telling him that his wife never collected their youngest son.
Rose Callaly, Rachel's mother, then called to the house to check if everything was all right.
In the meantime, Mr O'Reilly had picked his son up from the creche and afterwards went to collect his other son from school, but found out he had already been collected as part of a school run.
Mr Buckley said Mr O'Reilly arrived back at the house shortly after 2pm and that a major Garda investigation was launched.
He said a garda would give evidence of a conversation he had with Mr O'Reilly at about 2.20pm, in which Mr O'Reilly admitted to him that he had probably contaminated evidence by moving a box of books beside the body.
Mr O'Reilly told the garda: "I'm really sorry. I'm probably after ruining it for you."
Mr Buckley asked the jury to consider whether this was a comment "a grieving person" would make.
He said another female witness who met Mr O'Reilly on the day of the killing would give evidence that he had told her that gardaí had found no evidence of a sexual assault.
Mr Buckley claimed it was impossible for him to know this because the postmortem was not performed until the following day.
He said a witness called Jacqueline O'Connor, who was close friends with Rachel, would tell them how Mr O'Reilly told her he was being framed for murder and asked for her help in proving his innocence.
He said that when Ms O'Connor asked him whether he had an alibi, he said: "There were a few hours that I wasn't accounted for but Rachel was."
Another witness, Fiona Slevin, would give evidence of a conversation she had with Mr O'Reilly on the day of Rachel's funeral, in which he referred to the murder weapon. "I don't know why they're searching the fields. It's in the water."
He also said a co-worker would describe how Mr O'Reilly returned to the office at about midday on the day of the killing, with puffy eyes, as though he had been crying.
He received the call about his wife after 1pm.
Mr Buckley said that while much of the evidence in the case was circumstantial, it was the State's case that when it was heard in its entirety, the evidence would prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr O'Reilly did kill his wife.
"There may be a combination of circumstances, not one of which on their own may raise a reasonable doubt, but taken together can reach a conclusion of guilt," he said.
However, Mr Buckley warned the jury that if witnesses gave different evidence in court, they were to disregard what he told them in his opening speech.
The case, which is expected to last six weeks before Mr Justice Barry White and a jury of two women and nine men in the Central Criminal Court, continues today.