GARDAÍ INVESTIGATING the killing of a journalist during a random street attack at the weekend have arrested two men and believe CCTV footage recovered from the scene will be crucial to solving the case.
The two being questioned last night in relation to the killing of Eugene Moloney (55), Portobello, Dublin, are in their 20s and from Knocklyon and Templeogue in south Dublin.
They are not known to gardaí.
Both are being questioned under section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act in Pearse Street and Kevin Street Garda stations after being arrested yesterday morning.
The two men do not know each other. And it appears that when one became involved in a random verbal altercation with Moloney on the street, the other happened to be walking past and decided to punch the journalist.
The news reporter, who worked for most of his career with the Irish Independent and Evening Herald newspapers in Dublin, was found on Lower Camden Street just before 4.30am on Sunday.
He had sustained serious head injuries.
Moloney was attended by a nurse, who was passing the scene, until gardaí and paramedics arrived, but was then taken to St James’s Hospital. However, efforts to save him failed and he was pronounced dead. A postmortem revealed he died as a result of a blow to the head.
Gardai believe he was walking home alone, after leaving those with whom he had been socialising, when he brushed off a man on the street near pedestrian lights at the junction of Lower Camden Street and Pleasants Street, outside Devitt’s Pub.
Words were exchanged and, as this happened, a man unknown to either party walked up to Moloney and punched him on the head. The victim fell to the ground.
The men then ran from the scene but gardaí believe they have been recorded in the area on CCTV.
The dead man was a native of Donegal and had covered the Troubles in the North while working for the Irish News in Belfast.
Moloney then moved to the Irish Independent where he worked as a reporter.
He was unmarried and did not have children.
Moloney had been working for the Daily Mail and was planning a trip to Vietnam.
