Gardaí in Thurles, Co Tipperary, yesterday launched a murder investigation after a postmortem revealed that a man whose body was found in a hurling field in the town last Sunday died as the result of a stabbing.
Supt Tony Cogan, who is leading the investigation, described the victim as "a white-skinned male of thin, athletic build, aged between 30 and 40, weighing about 13st, 6ft 1in tall, with slightly receding, greying black hair, an old scar above his right eye and an old injury to the left knee".
Gardaí say the dead man could be either Irish or a foreign national. They have appealed for public assistance in identifying the man, and can be contacted at Thurles (tel: 0504-25100).
They have also been in contact with police in Britain.
Yesterday gardaí from the Tipperary division, members of the technical unit and detectives from Dublin continued to search the Railway Field which is normally used for hurling practice by boys from a nearby school.
Supt Cogan said it would appear from preliminary results from the postmortem carried out by State Pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy that it "would appear that it was a knife that was used".
However, no murder weapon has yet been found, and it is not clear when the man died.
The man's body was discovered at 7.30pm on Sunday by two men out walking dogs.
They noticed that a tent which had been pitched in a corner of the field for some time had disappeared and they went to investigate. They found the naked body of the man lying face down in the grass.
Local eyewitnesses said a man and a "blond-haired woman" had been living in the tent during the last two weeks.
Supt Cogan confirmed that gardaí had been aware of the tent, which "was not illegal", and that there were "possibly two occupants". Asked if he was looking for the blond woman, Supt Cogan said "we are keeping a very open mind".
Local sources say the man living in the tent had been evicted from a nearby flats complex recently for allegedly "trashing the place".
A flat on the first floor of the building yesterday had two broken windows and appeared to be empty.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a resident said gardaí had called to the building on Sunday night some five hours after the discovery of the body.
He said "there used to be a racket going on" in the flat but "there hasn't been for a week".
Gardaí declined to comment on whether the occupant of the flat had been one of the people living in the tent or was the murder victim.