A POST-MORTEM examination will be carried out later on the 22-year-old man who died in a shooting incident in Carlow on Sunday.

The body of Evan Fitzgerald was removed from the scene of Fairgreen Shopping Centre in Carlow yesterday and taken to the mortuary in Dublin ahead of today’s post-mortem by the State Pathologist.

A technical examination of the car park scene has finished but the scene remains held and the Fairgreen Shopping Centre remains closed.

Yesterday, gardaí began releasing cars from the Shopping Centre car park and access is only granted to people who left a vehicle there.

The scene of the fatality outside the Tesco store was also declared safe yesterday after an examination by Irish army explosives officers.

Gardaí had called the bomb disposal experts to the scene after observing a bottle containing an unknown substance on the body of the dead man.

Gardaí were alerted to the shooting incident in Carlow at around 6.15pm on Sunday, 1 June.

Fitzgerald, originally from Portrushen Upper near Kiltegan, Co Wicklow, was killed by his own firearm and no shots were fired by gardaí.

No one else was injured by any of the shots fired, though a young girl sustained a minor leg injury when she fell while running from the centre.

Fitzgerald had been on bail for serious firearms offences and was before the courts last year when he was charged with offences associated with an assault rifle he bought on the dark web.

He was arrested last year in Co Kildare by specialist gardaí from the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, who were assisted by armed officers from the Emergency Response Unit.

He was set to hear a date for his trial, having appeared before court again last month. 

At a previous hearing last year, where Fitzgerald was granted bail with strict conditions, the court was told he had a “fascination” with firearms but that the interest was more of a hobby rather than a “nefarious” one.