A 42-year-old man has gone on trial at the Central Criminal Court in Limerick for the murder of his neighbour in a village in Co Tipperary.
Richard Higgins of New Houses, Lattin, Co Tipperary denies murdering 29-year-old Sean Murphy on 17 January 2010.
He also denies a series of charges of threatening to kill Mr Murphy and his partner Paula Hasset on a number of dates in October and December 2009.
Mr Murphy died after he received a stab wound to the chest in a garden close to his home at New Houses in Lattin Co Tipperary.
In an outline of the case, the jury was told relations between both neighbours had deteriorated in the two years leading up to October 2009, after which they escalated when Mr Higgins' partner made a complaint about the behaviour of the Murphy children.
This began a series of incidents in which it is alleged Mr Higgins threatened and abused Mr Murphy.
At one stage he wielded an axe, and on another occasion he used the gesture of a gun and threatened to burn the Murphy house down.
The jury was told that on the night of 17 January 2010 there was an altercation between the two men outside their houses and that Mr Higgins stabbed Mr Murphy with a knife or ornamental dagger that he had got from his house.
They will also hear from Ms Hasset that just before Mr Murphy died he told her it was Mr Higgins who stabbed him.
In interviews with gardaí the accused man alleged that he acted in self-defence after the victim came at him with a plank.
The trial before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of eight men and four women is likely to continue for two weeks.
