Phelan (56), who shot dead intruder Keith Conlon, said he was “really shocked when he fell”.

He did not know Mr Conlon and, on the way to the police station after his arrest, asked officers if the father-of-four was a traveller.

The jury previously heard Mr Conlon was not a traveller.

The jury at Mr Phelan’s trial was hearing evidence of what he told gardaí while investigating the shooting of Mr Conlon at his farm in 2022. Mr Phelan maintains he accidentally hit him while firing into the air in self-defence. during a confrontation with intruders.

The prosecution alleges that he intended to kill or seriously injure Mr Conlon, who suffered a fatal wound to the back of the head.

Phelan, a law professor, pleads not guilty to the murder of Conlon (36) at Hazelgrove Farm, Kiltalown Lane, Tallaght.

He was shot on February 22, 2022, and died from his injuries in the hospital two days later.

The Central Criminal Court heard Conlon and his friends were hunting foxes and badgers on the farm when Phelan killed a dog that was with them and they had a “heated exchange”.

Today, Detective Garda Michael McGrath told prosecutor John Byrne that he first spoke to Mr Phelan at the scene while Mr Conlon was still being treated. He saw that Mr. Phelan had blood on his hands.

When he took out his notebook and asked what had happened, the defendant “told me, ‘I shot him,'” Detective Gda McGrath said.

He immediately warned Mr Phelan of his right to remain silent before proceeding to take note of what he said. Mr Phelan offered to tell what had happened.

The garda noted that Mr Phelan said: “We heard dogs in the woods” and there were “sheep on the road”.

He noted that Phelan said he went into the woods with a dog and a man to hold it.

“I saw a loose dog that I shot,” he said. “Three men came out roaring and shouting, I simply retreated, went up to the shore. I came back here.”

The detective noted that Phelan said he had called gardaí because he urgently needed help.

“They found the field. I was afraid. He kept approaching me, I told him to come back. Then it came back to me. “I shot him,” the garda said. “I was very surprised when he fell.”

Phelan asked for three amendments and to add the line: “I told him to come back.”

“At 1.45pm I arrested Mr Phelan under section 30 of the Offenses Against the State Act for a scheduled offence: possession of a firearm with intent to endanger others,” the garda said.

He was taken to Tallaght Garda Station.

Along the way, Phelan asked about Conlon’s well-being. She did not refer to him by name because she did not know him and asked the garda if he was a traveller.

“I didn’t respond in any way, I told him the man was being treated and paramedics were with him at the time,” Detective Gda McGrath said.

The jury heard after the arrest of Mr Phelan, who was questioned four times by gardaí and also made a statement.

In the first interview on the station at 7:45 p.m. on February 23, 2022, he said: “I am still shocked by what happened. “I can tell you what happened as far as I know.”

Prosecutor Caroline Cummings BL read a memorandum of this interview to the jury.

In it, the defendant said he had been with farm workers that morning when they heard a dog noise but decided to “just leave it.” When he heard the dog again at lunchtime, “I had to go check it out,” as there had been problems previously.

He and a worker took a sheepdog puppy into the woods and said he “called to see if anyone was there” twice, but there was no answer.

He said he saw a dog behind a bush “apparently loose” and “I shot it.” Three men, some in camouflage clothing, “exploded” from behind where it happened and were roaring and screaming, he said.

“I don’t want to shoot dogs,” Phelan told gardaí. The men were “actually threatening who shot the dog” and mentioned “getting me,” he said.

“Someone said ‘it’s not your land’ and I said yes it was,” he continued.

One of them started “taking pictures of me,” he said, saying “you shot the dog” and “obviously we had to get out of there as quickly as possible.”

“He was very scared,” Phelan told gardaí, and his “hands were shaking” as he climbed onto the bench.

“It seemed like we really landed on something,” Phelan said.

He told gardaí of previous incidents, including one in December, when people came to his land from a nomad camp; he “convinced them” and they left. A crime prevention officer had told him to be “very careful, stand back and call the guards.”

He said that in the incident involving Mr Conlon, as he was “climbing and stumbling”, he “had the impression that they sensed my fear”.

He was unable to locate the phone in his pocket and asked a farm worker to call the gardaí immediately.

Phelan said he told emergency services it was urgent as “these guys came out of the bush yelling and roaring at us”.

“I hate shooting dogs,” he said again, and that he had only had to shoot once before when “a pack of seven came from the Travelers’ camp.”

“I was alerted that the Travelers were coming toward us,” he continued. “It was one of the workers who alerted me.”

He could see two men, there had been three in the forest and he did not know where the other was.

He said the men had called the gardaí, to no avail, and “they kept coming”, he said.

“I didn’t know where the third man was or if there was anyone else,” Phelan said. “I yelled at them to stay back, and they kept coming.”

They “climbed” onto the platform Mr Phelan was standing on and he was unable to back away so he “yelled louder” at them.

“They showed up again, I was terrified at that point,” Phelan said. They “looked at me and spoke again.”

He still had the rifle on his shoulder and they were “closing the distance, saying things,” but he was concentrating “more on what he was seeing.”

One of the men was talking about his dog. “They were coming to carry out the threats they had made,” he said.

He said the “leader” had something but he couldn’t see what it was. “I was terrified. “I took out the revolver that I had in my pocket and shot into the air,” he said.

He knew from what he had been told that there were three shots and said his memory was that they were in an “arc” from left to right above their heads.

“I remember shooting from the left in the air to the right over their heads,” he said.

The trial continues before the jury and Judge Siobhan Lankford.