WORD FOR WORD: Read the full transcript of tragic shopping centre shooter Evan Fitzgerald's first Garda interview following his arrest in an elaborate sting operation where he tried to buy guns and ammunition from undercover detectives

Published: 16:20, 14 May 2026 | Updated: 16:26, 14 May 2026 The following is the full transcript of Evan Fitzgerald's first interview with gardai following his arrest alongside two of his close friends, Shane Kinsella and Daniel Quinn Burke, in a covert sting operation near Straffan, Co. Kildare. It came nine days after an undercover detective met with the Carlow shopping centre shooter in a Dublin pub. Despite this meeting, the boss of that same plainclothes officer would later say in court documents that the vulnerable young man - who was trying to buy guns and ammunition when he and his two pals were arrested - remained 'unidentified', even after that face-to-face meeting in a public house in the capital... Interview: 2nd of March 2024 of Evan Fitzgerald Present - Evan Fitzgerald Detective Garda Brian Johnson and Detective Garda Alan Monaghan.  Q: Evan do you understand the reason for your arrest here today? A: Yeah I do. It’s self-explanatory. Q: In your own words why were you arrested? A: I went on to a form of the dark web and tried to purchase a G3 rifle with 20 rounds of ammunition. Q: Caution explained in ordinary language to Evan. Did you consult with your solicitor prior to this interview? A: I did. The advice was just to let it all out. [Explained to Evan that he is entitled to have a solicitor present during interview. He is also entitled to consult with his solicitor at any stage during the interview. The set up of the interview room is explained to Evan i.e. cameras microphone. Section 30 O.A.S.A detention periods explained to Evan.] Q: Tell me what do you do for a living? A: I’m working in a steelyard at the moment. It was meant to be temporary but I’m there for a while now. Q: Can you give me the name and location of the company? A: [REDACTED]. It’s a 15 minute walk from my house. We fabricate sheds. It’s in Kiltegan, Co. Wicklow. Q: Have you any qualifications? A: I have some medical qualifications EFR, FAR and another one right below FAR. Q: Did you complete your leaving cert? A: Yes, both my junior and leaving cert. Q: [Detective Garda Monaghan explains interview process to Evan] Can you explain any medical conditions you may have? A: Dyslexia, difficult to read things and spell them. Dyspraxia. I’m a bit clumsy but it effects my writing mostly. Dyscalculia. I’m terrible with numbers. That’s it, I don’t have autism or ADHD or anything like that. Q: So do you understand right from wrong? Q: So if you picked up a paper tomorrow and read ‘man buys guns from man’. What would you think? Tragic Evan Fitzgerald, who would later take his own life at a busy Carlow shopping centre Evan's friends Daniel Quinn Burke and Shane Kinsella both pleaded guilty to possessing a rifle, a semi-automatic pistol and ammunition on March 2, 2024, the day of the garda sting op Forensics officers at the scene of the shooting in which Evan took his own life on June 1, 2025 A: I think it would be news. It would depend on the circumstance. Q: I arrested you this morning in possession of two firearms. What do you have to say about that? [Detective Garda Monaghan leaves interview room. Evan describes to him where chemicals are stored at his home. Detective Grade Monaghan back to interview room.] A: The two firearms, one being a rifle would be considered a high powered rifle. The pistol is a 45 calibre. It doesn’t break the sound barrier. It’s just an average pistol. Q: Where you purchasing these rifles to fire them or leave them on a glass case on display? A: I got the ammo for it so that I could basically shoot a tree. I couldn’t go into a random field and fire randomly. I would basically just shoot it maybe twice and put it away for ever. The reason I chose to have the G3 rifle was because it’s historic. It’s only used in militaries to a very small extent. That version is 19th century, 1960s give or take. I wanted it for its historical purpose. The same with the 1911, being the handgun. I wanted it for its historical purpose. Q: The ammunition you’ve got with both of those guns. Where you going to use that ammunition to shoot all the trees? A: Not trees in particular. Just a solid surface to ensure it wouldn’t go through and to see if it worked. Q: Tell me what knowledge you have in relation to the possession of firearms in this country? A: Not entirely. I just never really looked into it. Maybe you have to pay €80 a month to own a gun in Ireland. Q; Did you even apply for a license? Q: Are you thinking of shotguns and the likes of compared to handguns? A: I thought you could get those things with the speciality license. I thought you could get a .22 handgun (with a license). Q: You are fully aware of what you did was illegal today. Q: Can you give me an account of everything that happened from the very beginning to how you got here today? A: I was in school. I went onto the public computers and used a Thor network. I was young at the time and didn’t plan to buy anything it was specifically and only firearms. I took a photo of one of the websites. I thought it was interesting. That was maybe four years ago. Around a month ago I was just looking through my gallery. I saw the photo that I took had a telegram link. Out of curiosity I downloaded telegram. The photo was years old. It was shot in the dark. I didn’t think it would work. The website was called [REDACTED]. To my surprise I got a message back, I thought they would have been shut down years ago. They asked for proof of funds. Once I showed the proof of funds they said they would put me in contact with a person within Ireland. The conversation went back and forth. They wanted to do bitcoin. I wanted to do cash. We communicated and came up with the price. Q; Was there a name given to you? A: They got me to download proton mail. It’s like email but you don’t have to give any information. The conversation went back and forth on proton mail. Their username was IrishDeliveries. All lower-case all one word. My username for proton mail was a bunch of numbers and letters but contained within the series of numbers and letters was 'def con' from there they asked me to get a burner phone. They gave me a number to call. I did a meet up with them in Dublin just to talk. That was out-side of Finnigans pub. There was like a small park outside of that. They wanted to see if I could turn up. Nothing was really said. He had a Covid mask on him. Just one person. To talk better he removed it and I saw his face. The next few days went by with dates for a meet. One came up and it was for today. I went up to the meet up area. My burner phone called and he told me the area to go to today. I got to the place. I gave him the cash. A: I basically tricked my friend to bring me there. Because he had a car and I didn’t. A: I don’t know the model. It was red. Q: Where were you sitting in the back? A: Behind the passenger seat in the back. A: Along the river. He told me the area and I punched it into Google Maps. Q: Did you tell the driver where to go? A: Yeah. Once we arrived at the place I gave him money. Q: How many people did you meet? A: Two. Originally there as one. In that the one I gave the cash to a second car arrived with the fire-arms in the boot. I went over with the guitar guitar case and put the rifle inside. Q: Did you bring the guitar case to store the firearms inside? A: Yeah. I don’t play guitar. I grabbed the two bags of ammunition and put them in my own bag. A: A generic bag. A hiking bag. Black/grey or blue. They both drove away. I wanted to show off the pistols to my friends.I dragged them to this. They both handled the pistol. Only me handled the rifle. I was in the back seat cleaning the rifle making sure it was safe. We went to drive off. The guitar case closed. It was right beside me. The bag was at my feet as well. I took the pistol then and put it in the bag. In the bag now there was the pistol and 20 rounds of ammunition. Q: Why did you put the rifle in a guitar case? A: It was the biggest container I had. Q: Did you put the rifle into the guitar case to hide it? Q: You know right from wrong. Do you think the purpose of buying firearms at a canal is wrong? A: It depends the purpose from which the people are using them. But generally yes. Q: Do you do you agree that what you did today was illegal? Q: Who was driving the car today? A: Daniel Quinn. From Baltinglass. Q: Who was in the passenger seat? A: Shane Kinsella from Wicklow from just up the road from me. Q: Describe to me what happened today from when you got up. A: I got up today. I took a shot of Jagermeister. That was probably 7:30am. Dan drove to my house in his red car. I put the guitar guitar case in the backseat. I took it from my house. It used to be my dad’s. Dan arrived about 7:30am the same time I got up. I asked Dan to go to my house to give me a lift to Dublin. Q: Did Dan know you were going to collect firearms today? A: I’m not going to talk about my friends here today, no comment. The only thing I’ll say is I lied to my friends, I betrayed their trust. I manipulated them. Q: Are you saying you take full responsibility for today? A: One hundred per cent. Yeah. I was the one that communicated with the dealer. I was the one that asked all the questions, how much, all of that. It was all me. I betrayed them completely. A: We collected Shane at his house. He doesn’t live far away, it was about 7:40am. Q: Did Shane know why you were going to Dublin? A: I don’t want to talk about it. It just gets me thinking what I’ve done today. Q: What is taking shot of Jagermeister about? A: I knew I was going to betray my friends. I knew it was bad. A: Yeah. A way to slap myself in the face. A: We drove straight to Dublin on the N7. Q: Were you going to give Dan money for bringing you? A: When the whole thing was done I would have given him €50 which I have done. Q: Did he know you were going to give him that? Q: What part of Dublin did you go to? A: We stopped at a shopping centre. It was very big. We got a McDonald’s. We went into the restau-rant and ate it on the way back out. Q: Was it in Blanchardstown or maybe Liffey Valley? A: Yeah I think Liffey Valley. It has a giant Penneys and Vue Cinema. Q: Why were you going to Dublin? A: For the deal. Then I got a phone call from the dealer on my Nokia phone, the disposal. Q: What did you have the dealer saved as? A: Just the phone, no name. I have Dan saved on my phone as 'Ronan'. Have it as a nickname for him. I called him Ronan because there’s a game call Titan Fall Two (TFT). He played as a robot called Ronan all the time. If you don’t press the key lock on the phone it can just ring random numbers. It did this before, it rang two random numbers. One of them was an English number. There’s two Sim cards in the burner phone, Irish and English. A: I was in England and that’s where I bought the phone and Sim card. It didn’t work properly in Ire-land, the English Sim card so I bought a second one. Q: When did you buy that burner phone? A: I prefer not to talk about my girlfriend in this setting. Q: Why would you need a burner phone? A: To buy guns. They told me to buy a burner phone and give them the number. Q: Was all the reason into buying the guns on the dark net done on your other phone, the Sam-sung? A: No. It started years ago on the schools computer and it was reignited on the Samsung smart phone. We had communication via text on the smart phone. When I say text I mean I used Proton Mail and telegram. A: Because telegram was the link with the photo. Q: When you say photo what do you mean? A: I took a photo of the schools computer screen. I had downloaded the Thor network on the schools computer. The photo taken was on “random guns” on the onion link. I took multiple photo-graphs of guns and I save them on my smartphone. I had no intentions on buying bit I just thought it was interesting or cool. A: It was a shot in the dark. I didn’t think it would work. It was a photo I took three years ago. I thought the site would’ve shut down. Q: [16:22 Detective Garda Monaghan leaves interview room to get water for Evan. 16:24 Detective Garda Monaghan returns]. Just to bring you back to this morning at McDonald’s. A: When I contacted this guy asking to get a rifle and pistol. I wasn’t expecting it to work. I thought it might have been a scam. Q: What happened after McDonald’s? A: I got a call to go to the Circle K on the Naas Road. Once we got to the Circle K we got another call to go to the canal. A: Yeah. I told Dan where to go. We got to the canal at maybe 9:35 am. My memory is terrible when it comes to times. Q: Tell me what happened when you got to the canal? A: We arrived there. I got into the guys car. It was parked along the canal along the ditch. It was silver. It began with a ‘T’. There was one guy in the car. I got into the passenger side, just me, Daniel and Shane were in Daniel’s car. I gave the guy €2700 in cash, fifties, hundreds and two hundreds notes. It was in a plastic bag. He was happy. He counted it. It was all there. I then went back to Daniels car. There was a big group of joggers. They stopped in front of his car. Middle-aged. It would just be a coincidence. They went back the way they came. I didn’t like it at all. Some were wearing high Viz and I thought it was police. When I was back in Daniel’s car, the dealers arrived. I got the guitar case and put it at the boot of the dealers car. It was a short car, grey, dark grey. I saw his face as well. There was one in this car. I took the rifle out of the boot of the dealers car. I put it in the guitar case. I then had my bag on my back. I put the ammunition and the hand gun in this bag. They were in the boot as well. I put the guitar case and rucksack containing the guns and ammunition in the back of Daniel’s car. We turned a corner and were stopped by the guards. Q: We didn’t know you. What were your intentions with the firearms are you a danger to society? A: No. Just to have some history really. I’ve always had a fascination with firearms. Ever since I was 14. Always. A: I was more interested in the way they worked then what they did. The mechanisms inside of them. How they operate it. Q: Was it an obsession or fascination? A: At the start it was a fascination but the fact you can’t have something means you want it more. I think if it was a fascination with engines it wouldn’t have turned into an obsession because you can have engines. Q: Do your family know about your fascination? Q: I put it to you that you have an unhealthy obsession with firearms. In my opinion, fascination is a more childlike innocent term, obsession obsession is a grown-up term for not stopping until you get it. Would you agree with that? Q: How do we know that you weren’t going to kill somebody with this firearm? A: I don’t have a vendetta against anyone. I’m generally very friendly. I believe in the good of humanity. I have hitchhiked hundreds times. A: Yeah. The main reason I don’t have a car is because I like hitchhiking. I could of got my license years ago before working in the steelyard. I just like talking to people. Q: Would your family be concerned that you may use the firearm if we spoke to them? Q: So you don’t have a vendetta against anyone? A: No. Everyone has somebody they don’t like. They’re not going to go off and shoot them. Q: All your actions since we met you have been criminal like. We don’t have a crystal ball. We don’t have your true intention for your use of those firearms. We are going on your word. That’s a dangerous space for us to be in. A: If I were an aggressive criminal and I was looking for a person to hurt as many people as possible I wouldn’t have chosen the weapons I went with. Most criminals would go with a Glock. Most am-munition capacity. It has no history. Cheaper. Some people would go with the A.K. It has no history. Those both have around double the ammunition capacity and would’ve been cheaper. Q: Why what do you mean by history? A: I mean a story, historical history. Q: Had you any intentions of hurting yourself or any of your friends or family? Q: Have you ever had any thoughts of harming yourself? Q: How would you describe your relationship with your family? A: Good, I guess. With my sister its fine. She lovely. She 17/18. My relationship with my mother is rocky in parts but overall it’s fine. A: My parents are separated. He is in Kilkenny. I don’t see him that much. He’s distant but he’s there. Q: Earlier today you said to me you were looking specifically for firearms on the dark net. What did you mean by that? A; I mean it was just for guns, not for drugs or anything like that. Not illegal cars or anything. I will say that talking to the dealer and arranging everything for didn’t seem real. I wasn’t really expecting it to work. A: When I work so hard to get something only then now. It’s just there, I just didn’t think it would even work. Q: Do you wish to clarify anything in the notes I have just read to you? A: First I intended to tell you everything even even before I talked to my solicitor. Second. I was going to give Dan the €50 as an apology for after today. Also in relation to the guns today it was my intention when I got older to destroy the guns or get them donated to maybe a museum. Also I’m terrible with times. I have had this memo read to me and it is correct. I have made any changes I deem necessary. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.