Gardaí were last night continuing to question two men in connection with the murder of a mother of three who was found stabbed to death in her home last year.
The body of Irene White (43) was found lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen of her family home at Demense Road, Dundalk, Co Louth, on April 6th, 2005. The men being questioned last night were arrested at 7am yesterday at two addresses in the Dundalk area.
The men, aged 43 and 34, were detained under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act on suspicion of withholding information.
Gardaí are believed to have gathered evidence relating to telephone contact on the morning of the killing between persons of interest to investigating gardaí.
"All the evidence we have gathered in the last 13 months has been put together and gone through and we felt this was the correct time to make the arrests," said a senior Garda source.
The men, whose arrests are the first in the case, were being questioned at Kells Garda station, Co Meath, and can be held for up to 72 hours without charge.
The motive for the killing remains unknown but gardaí believe the dead woman may have become embroiled in a dispute with a man known to her and that her murder may be linked to this.
Ms White was a popular woman in her locality. Her elderly mother, Maureen McBride (70), who lived in a mobile home at the bottom of her garden, found her body. The killing shocked the community.
Gardaí believe Ms White's killer was waiting for her to return from the school run. She had dropped her three children at their respective schools on the morning she was killed. She was last seen alive talking to another parent outside one of the schools.
She arrived home at about 10am and her body was discovered 2½ hours later.
Last December an inquest into her murder was told by State Pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy that Ms White had been stabbed a number of times. She had died as a result of blood loss and haemorrhage with particular injuries to her heart, lung and liver.
Before adjourning the inquest, coroner Ronan Maguire heard evidence from Sgt Aidan Costello that he went to Ice House on the Demense Road at about 12.40pm.
In the kitchen of the house he found Ms White's body, which was lying on its back with the head pressed up against the dishwasher. The body fully clothed and her white polo neck jumper was covered in blood. There were also bloodstains on the dishwasher and broken glass on the kitchen floor.
A man was seen running from the vicinity of Ms White's home at about 10.15am on the morning of the murder. Witnesses say he ran through Ice House, Hill Park adjoining the woman's house, into O'Hanlon Park and then made off in a dark coloured car. He was wearing jeans, a dark jacket and peaked cap.