Laura obscured his view of the fight, the driver told the guards, but he did see Richard Culhane walk away as the fracas ended. He saw Richard walk over to the cab and put his arm out to Laura Haines. Laura seemed upset, but the driver couldn’t hear what she was saying because the window on that side of the car was rolled up.

The taxi driver got out of the car and leaned on the roof.

‘Here,’ he said to Richard, and nodded over at Conor. ‘Is that fella alright?’

At this point, most people are agreed, Stephen O’Brien shouted, ‘We fucking showed that little cunt.’

Richard said to the taxi driver, ‘Can you take us home?’

‘I think you should stay and look after your friend.’ The driver gestured at Laura. ‘Could you get off the car, please, love?’ he said.

The taxi driver – his name was Mick Conroy – left Blackrock and drove to pick up a fare in Booterstown and then into the city centre. He then drove back to Blackrock because, he said, ‘I was concerned about the young fella. He’d just been lyin’ there, like.’

When he got back – this was forty-five minutes later – Conor was still lying on the concrete of the path. At this point he was still breathing. Fergal Morrison and Dave Whelehan were sitting beside him. Debbie Guilfoyle, Dave’s girlfriend, stood nearby with two friends. They were all dialing numbers on their mobile phones.

The taxi driver asked the girls what they were doing. They were all trying to raise taxis to take Conor home, they said.

‘It’s not home he needs,’ the taxi driver said.

The taxi driver called an ambulance.

It arrived forty minutes later.

16

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

When Conor had fallen and the kicking had stopped, Barry Fox was the one who knelt and touched Conor’s head to see if he was okay.

Later, at the trial, he testified that Conor was still breathing as far as he could tell.

It is probable that brain damage had already occurred by the time Barry watched Conor’s chest to see if he was still breathing. The report of the state pathologist would indicate that inhalation of blood was a substantial contributing factor in Conor’s subsequent death. In the report the actual cause of death is listed as massive internal haemorrhaging in the area of the frontal lobe. But when Barry Fox knelt to check on him, Conor was still breathing. He was still alive.

This would have been about twenty minutes after three on Sunday morning.

‘Christ,’ Barry said. ‘I think we should call an ambulance. Guys, I fucking think we should call an ambulance.’

He was still kneeling over Conor’s body and looking up into the crowd. He says he doesn’t remember who he was talking to when he said, ‘I think we should call an ambulance.’ It’s logical to assume he was talking to Richard Culhane and Stephen O’Brien, and possibly even to Laura Haines, who was still leaning against Mick Conroy’s idling car, dressed in her bloodstained black hoodie. But in a sense it doesn’t matter who Barry was talking to at this point, because nobody called an ambulance until it was almost five o’clock in the morning, and by then it was much too late.