Several overseas newspaper and television reports on the murder cited grossly inaccurate facts, most notably a claim that 16 people had been killed in gangland murders in Limerick in the past 12 months.

Generalisations that Limerick was "Europe's most dangerous town" were frequently made.

While criticisms of national tabloid coverage of Limerick have been raised before, the international media presence in Limerick for the Munster v All Blacks game meant that the story was broadcast to an unprecedented worldwide audience.

"Most of it has been inaccurate," said Ms Ryan. "It started with a report in The Observer newspaper, then a guy called David Sharrock from The Times in London ran a similar article with incorrect statistics in it. Then Channel Four decided to come here, and the report they made was absolutely inaccurate. It was almost as if the reporter took a copy of The Times article and took all those facts as gospel."

The article in the Times of London was particularly galling, given that publication's tradition as a paper of record in the UK. As well as using loaded language such as "Stab City" and "drug lords", it made baseless claims that King's Island was occupied by 10,000 people, was the centre of operations for "all three crime clans" and was "flooded with uzi-armed police". It also claimed that "in one incident several people were killed following a fight between children".

The claims were replicated by Channel Four in the news programme of Tuesday November 11, a broadcast which caused Ms Ryan to lodge a complaint with the programme's producers, leading to a clarification being aired a day later.

"Obviously what happened to Shane Geoghegan was horrific. A lot of people worked so hard here trying to make this week the one week when the city was going to shine," Ms Ryan said.

"We had Jonah Lomu, we had City Hall and all the bridges and shop fronts decorated in red. Then this happened, and instead of all the press being here to write positive things about Limerick, they were all reporting a horrendous event like Shane's death."

Particular attention was paid to the events by the New Zealand media, who had already planned to travel to Limerick ahead of Tuesday night's Munster v All Blacks contest.

New Zealand TV One produced one particular report, which mentioned the murder and the 'stab city' moniker and raises questions about the security situation in Limerick city as a whole.

Ms Ryan said that while several national journalists are based in Limerick and make genuine efforts to provide the full details and context of events in the city, it was unfortunate that many media outlets, in this instance from other countries, simply take a "snap shot" of Limerick.

"In saying that, the New Zealand tv crews, BBC and Sky were all on to me this week, and they're all doing pieces about the match and the great occasion," she said.

Ms Ryan, who is from Limerick, previously worked for TV3 and the Daily Star in Dublin. She insists that the national media based in the capital does not have an agenda against Limerick, stating rather that some tabloid newspapers simply "lose the run of themselves" when reporting an organised crime-related death in the city.

"I just wanted this to be a chance for the city to lift itself up and not let a couple of thugs ruin everything for everyone. It's very hard to just get good publicity full stop, there's always something overshadowing it. But you can't just give up everytime something like this happens," she said.