A Garda tape cordoned off most of the Shell garage on Taney Road for much of yesterday following the late-night assault in which a young man was critically injured.
Detectives carried out a technical examination at the scene before the tape was removed at 2.35 p.m., just over 14 hours after the fracas between a number of youths at the junction between Goatstown Road and Taney Road.
Last night, the 19-year-old from Rosemount, Dundrum, was in a "critical but stable" condition in the intensive care unit of Beaumont Hospital. The teenager had been transferred to Beaumont from St Vincent's Hospital after his condition deterioriated in the early hours of yesterday.
At the scene there was little to indicate that there had been any disturbance in the middle-class south Dublin suburb. In the Goat Inn, where the young man had been earlier in the evening, bar staff only became aware of the incident at the start of business yesterday.
There was no disturbance in the Goat Inn and the dispute did not start there.
The barman who locked up on Tuesday night said that he opened the doors to let out two women who were waiting for a taxi and gardaí approached and asked if he knew anything about a fight. "I said there was no trouble," said Mr Ken Kelly. "I thought they meant had there been a fight in here." He did not know if the victim had been in the pub earlier, although a number of people in their 20s had been in for a drink.
Not many customers were in the pub yesterday afternoon, but those who were there were shocked by what had happened.
One man, who declined to be named, said that he had been talking to the injured youth's uncle. "I was stunned when I heard what happened. When I found out that I knew him, I was appalled," he said.
He thought that the teenager had been going to the garage to buy cigarettes and that youngsters threw stones at him and "it got out of hand".
But the garage had closed at 11 p.m. and the assault is believed to have occurred between 12.20 and 12.45 a.m. Gardaí, however, are satisfied that the young was in the Goat Inn earlier.
Det Insp Martin Cummins, of Blackrock Garda station, the district headquarters, said that a number of youths had been in the pub. There were different "parties" who were not together in the pub. However, there had been a "certain amount of high jinks" and a "number of rows", which resulted in the "fracas" and the young man being critically injured.
Det Insp Cummins said that gardaí had interviewed a number of people and were following "definite lines of inquiry".
They had not got much of a response from motorists. A lot of motorists were believed to have been driving on Taney Road at the time. The fracas had moved from the forecourt of the garage out on to Taney Road and would have stopped traffic.
Gardaí have appealed to anyone with information to contact the incident room at Blackrock on (01) 6665270 or (01) 6665250.
At Rosemount Park in Dundrum, where the young man lived, all was quiet, and nobody appeared to be at home in a number of houses.
Around the area of the Goat Inn, locals were shocked by what had occurred. Some declined to be interviewed, but one elderly woman said she was very surprised to hear that there had been such an incident.
"It is terrible," she said. "This is a very nice area and there is very little trouble. But it seems to be everywhere now."
