Nationalist Short Strand in east Belfast turned out in force for the funeral yesterday of Robert McCartney, the 33-year-old father of two who was fatally stabbed outside a Belfast city centre pub on January 30th.
More than 1,000 people filled St Mathew's Church to overflowing. SDLP deputy leader Dr Alasdair McDonnell and party councillor Mr Pat McCarthy were among the congregation, as was local Alliance Assembly member Ms Naomi Long.
No prominent Sinn Féin figures were seen at the funeral Mass although local Sinn Féin councillor Mr Joe O'Donnell was observed outside the church as the cortege made its way inside.
The murder of Mr McCartney has triggered considerable anger in the community, which has rallied behind Mr McCartney's family. A crowd of about 1,000 attended a special vigil for the dead man in the Short Strand area on Friday night.
Seven people from Ardglass, Co Down, and Belfast, including one senior Provisional republican from the Markets area of the city close to Short Strand, were questioned and released in connection with Mr McCartney's murder, although the PSNI stated there was nothing to suggest there was paramilitary planning behind the killing.
Also attending yesterday was PSNI Det Chief Insp Kevin Dunwoody, who is in charge of the murder investigation, and a number of his colleagues.
One of the main police lines of inquiry is that at least one member of the IRA was implicated in the killing, which happened after a row erupted in Magennis's pub in Belfast city centre on Sunday night week - but that the row flared spontaneously and that there was no official sanctioning of the stabbing.
The officiating priest, the Rev Seán Gilmore, parish priest of St Mathew's Church, adverted in his sermon to how Mr McCartney went into the pub with some friends before going on to a birthday party. "Robert ordered a taxi to pick them up but before the taxi arrived 15 minutes later Robert lay dying on the pavement and his two friends injured," he said.
Father Gilmore hoped his killers would be caught. "It would be good to think that Robert's killers will be brought to justice in this life, and soon. In the league of values, life must stand at the top, the highest value we have.
"Therefore to take a life, particularly as a result of a disagreement in a pub, has to be the greatest evil one person can commit against another. Murder is wrong. It is evil. It is contrary to natural law and contrary to divine law," he added.
"We will all be called to account whether we are believers or not. On the day of final judgment Robert will stand shoulder to shoulder with his killers, before the judgment seat of God and all will be judged on a life lived in love."
He said the killing had changed for ever the lives of Mr McCartney's partner, Bridgeen; his two children, Conlead and Brandon; his sisters; and his parents, who lost their only other son to suicide four years ago.
