A MAN FOUND dead outside a pub in the county Wicklow town of Avoca died from injuries he received when he was hit by a vehicle outside the pub, the Irish Independent reports.

Brian ‘Brier’ Doyle had been punched in the face outside the pub earlier on Sunday, but a post-mortem conducted by deputy state pathologist Khalid Jabbar has determined that he was killed when he was hit by a vehicle as he lay on the road.

Doyle was involved in a row after the Liverpool v Everton football match outside Fitzgerald’s pub in the town- made famous by the BBC television series Ballykissangel.

Gardaí have said that they are satisfied that the death was accidental, but have appealed to people in the village between 3pm and 9pm on Sunday to contact them. Garda Supt Pat Ward  said the incident was “a tragedy for Avoca and for the people in it”, reports the newspaper.

A friend of Doyle’s, John Kinsella, said that Doyle “was not a fighting man” and described him as “very timid”, the Evening Herald reports.

I am devastated. He was having a drink with his friends, everybody was Brier’s friend. I don’t know how he died. I had been in Fitzgerald’s but left it a half an hour before that. There wasn’t a bother on him when I left. I couldn’t see anybody in the pub hitting him. He wasn’t that sort of chap.

Other locals described Doyle as “harmless”. Emergency Services attempted to resuscitate him when they arrived on the scene, but he was pronounced dead at around 9.45pm.