LAST UPDATE | 2 Jun

THE MAN STABBED to death in Dublin city centre in the early hours of Monday morning has been named locally as 21-year-old Qayyum Balogun.

He had been attending a late-night concert by the singer Famous Pluto in Bewley’s on Grafton Street before he was attacked. 

The young man was pronounced dead at St James’s Hospital after being found by emergency services suffering from stab wounds on nearby Clarendon Sreet at around 3am on bank holiday Monday morning.

Investigating gardaí sealed off much of the area yesterday, including a large stretch of Grafton Street, as the investigation got under way. 

The Journal has learned that a row between upwards of 20 people broke out inside the venue. 

At around 3am this spilled out into the street and at some point Qayyum Balogan tried to flee through a side entrance of Bewley’s.

He was stabbed close to this exit, sources said, and initially sustained an injury to his arm.

A woman, who was an innocent bystander, was also injured and understood to have received a non-life threatening stab wound in the melee. Gardaí have established she had nothing to do with the fight.

Forensic gardaí at the scene of the stabbing. Damien Storan Damien Storan

Stabbed multiple times 

As the chaos continued the 21-year-old fled for his life and moved in the direction of Clarendon Street, which runs parallel to Grafton Street.

It’s understood he was cornered there and stabbed multiple times in the chest. 

Garda forensic experts gathered evidence from the multiple scenes throughout Monday, taking samples and photographing exhibits on the street.

Due to the extent of the murder scene, which runs about 100 metres in length from Grafton Street to Coppinger Row to Clarendon Street, shops were closed across the area on Monday.

Detectives were gathering CCTV from shops along the route. There was also a garda search team involved in searching manholes, drains and other difficult-to-access areas for evidence. 

Qayyum Balogun, who was a student, was born in Nigeria but moved to Ireland when he was a boy. It is believed he was living in County Louth. Sources said that he had been working as a promoter and a DJ on a part-time basis. 

It is understood his mother is in Ireland and gardaí are liaising with her. His father is understood to be in Nigeria.

A similar incident a year ago in nearby South Anne Street saw Quham Babatunde die after a row spilled out from a concert in a nearby venue. 

A man is charged and before the courts in Northern Ireland in connection with that incident. A number of other people have been sentenced in courts in Ireland for their part in that incident.

Policy

Monday’s fatal stabbing has reignited debate among politicians on the approach to crime in the city centre.

Social Democrats TD and spokesperson for justice Gary Gannon called for a violence reduction strategy.

He said an approach which contains short, medium and long-term solutions is needed to tackle the problem of violence in Dublin. He said this strategy should include a garda response, but also peer-led community interventions, and violence disruptors who can enter violent situations and mediate.

“Gardaí are not going to be in every nightclub in the city, and we need to have an understanding about what is creating this level of violence,” he said.

Gannon was critical of minister of justice Jim O’Callaghan, who he said has a “Humpty Dumpty” approach.

“The thing that frustrates me most about our current minister for justice is he’s so reactive to violence after it happens that he has no clue to get in front of issues like this before we can see the aftermath,” he said.

“When you have that Humpty Dumpty approach, and you don’t come at it from a number of different angles, we’re always going to be having scenarios like this, and they become increasingly more frequent because violence brings more violence.

“We need a strategy that isn’t just Humpty Dumpty that everyone comes running once things fall down,” he added.

Meanwhile, Labour’s Dublin spokesperson and MEP, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, said the way in which Dublin is being governed needs to change and called for the development of a specific civil leadership role to tackle issues like violence in Dublin.

“There is a sense now that the city is going into a period of effective lawlessness,” he said, highlighting dereliction, homelessness and a perceived lack of garda presence as issues contributing to this.

He believes a role like a directly elected mayor of Dublin should be formed and tasked with Dublin-specific issues.

“[The city] is being governed in a way that’s not working,” he added.

In a statement, the Department of Justice said that they cannot comment on an ongoing garda investigation, though they clarified that O’Callaghan “strongly condemns the use of knives to threaten, intimidate or cause harm”.

“An Gardaí Siochana is taking proactive measures to tackle this issue, including their assault reduction strategy, which is targeted at tackling all types of assaults in public, including use of knives and other weapons,” the statement said.

“Legislation was introduced in 2024 which increased the maximum penalty for the offences of possession of a knife with intent to cause injury, trespassing with a knife, and producing a knife to unlawfully intimidate another person, from 5 to 7 years imprisonment,” the statement added.

With additional reporting from Sophie Finn.