A CO Wicklow man stabbed his father to death as he lay drunk and asleep in his sitting room, a Central Criminal Court jury has been told.
Mr Joseph Mathews SC, prosecuting, said Mr Thomas Heaney was resentful of a relationship that his widower father, Peter, had formed with a separated married woman after his wife died.
Mr Heaney (28), pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to the murder of his father, Mr Peter Heaney, a fitter in his 50s, at their home at Marian Villas, Arklow, Co Wicklow, on October 9th, 1994.
Opening the prosecution case, Mr Matthews said Mr Peter Heaney lived in a semi detached house in an estate on the Arklow to Gorey road.
His wife died of cancer and his son, Thomas, returned from England to live with him.
Mr Heaney formed a relationship with Mrs Anne Killeen who was married with children but separated, and occasionally Mrs Killeen would stay overnight with Mr Heaney.
Mr Mathews said it was the prosecution case that early on October 9th, 1994, Mr Heaney was left asleep and drunk in the sitting room after having been in a pub.
At some time between 1.30 a.m. and 1.50 a.m. Mr Thomas Heaney came into the room and used a meat knife with a 6 1/2 inch blade he had taken from a kitchen drawer to stab his father.
He said the jury would hear that Mr Thomas Heaney had been playing loud music and making a lot of noise when his father and Mrs Killeen returned home. He said Mrs Killeen decided to go home after Mr Peter Heaney fell asleep in the sitting room.
Mr Mathews said nobody saw Mr Heaney kill his father but a number of witnesses would say that they heard "ferocious noise coming from the Heaney house and the sound of breaking glass.
Mr Mathews said it was the State's case that Mr Thomas Heaney was obsessed with his late mother and resented the relationship.
Mrs Anne Killeen said she lived at St John's Villas in Arklow and separated from her husband 5 1/2 years ago.
She said that on Saturday, October 8th, Mr Peter Heaney; picked her up and they went to a pub in Coolgraney near Wexford where they had drinks.
They had more drinks at another pub and left at midnight for the Heaney home.
She made tea and sandwiches' and could hear Mr Thomas Heaney playing "heavy rock music" in his room.
Mrs Killeen said Mr Peter Heaney fell asleep sitting in a chair in the front room.
She said she had asked Mr Thomas Heaney to join them for tea and sandwiches, but he refused. She said he seemed "angry". She met him on the upstairs landing before she left the house.
She left through the back door around 1.30 a.m. and Mr Peter Heaney was still alive and asleep when she left the house,
Mrs Killeen was shown a knife which she identified as one used by Mr Peter Heaney to cut meat. She said it had not been in the kitchen drawer when she was making the sandwiches.
Cross examined by Mr Brendan Grogan SC, for the defence, Mrs Killeen denied she had been seeing Mr Peter Heaney before his wife died.
Mrs Colette Hayden, a next door neighbour of the Heaneys, said she was awakened after 1 a.m. on October 9th by the sound of breaking glass.
She looked out her window and saw glass falling out from the inside into the garden of the Heaney house.
She went downstairs and could hear more glass breaking. She saw glass falling from the inside, out from a top storey window.
The defendant came out of his house and put his hands on the bonnet of a car that was parked in the front garden.
She said she thought she saw a lot of blood on his hands but wasn't sure.
Mr Thomas Heaney went back into his hall and she heard him say: "I'm sorry, mammy."
The trial before Mr Justice Budd and the jury continues today.