The name of Michael McIlveen has joined "the long, sad litany of those murdered by sectarian hatred", the Catholic Bishop of Down and Connor, Most Rev Patrick Walsh, told mourners at the funeral of the 15-year-old boy in Ballymena, Co Antrim, yesterday.
Speaking of those who beat the teenager to death 10 days ago, the bishop said, "A young person's heart very soon becomes a storeplace for hate if exposed to a culture of intolerance, aggression and violence, a culture of sectarianism." This exposure often began, he said, "when the young person is forced to listen to hate-filled words".
Such words fuelled "weapons of murderous intent", he said, and quoted the Psalms: "Their teeth are slings and arrows, their tongues sharpened swords." More than 1,000 people packed into All Saints' Church and its grounds on the Cushendall Road near the Dunclug/Dunvale estate where the McIlveens, and most of the town's Catholic minority, live.
Hundreds of teenagers followed the cortege, wearing Celtic football shirts with "Mickybo RIP" printed on the back. Some mourners cried inconsolably through the service. Others were ashen-faced and exhausted after 10 intense days of grief.
The funeral had been delayed because Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) forensic officers could not release the body until Monday evening, when it was returned to Michael's home.
It took family members half-an-hour yesterday morning to carry the floral tributes left by people who had visited a shrine to Mickybo in the front garden. Silence fell as Michael's heartbroken mother, Gina, emerged clinging to a relative.
Then the family played once again the song which has become the murdered boy's anthem, Cara Dillon's version of the Tommy Sands ballad There Were Roses. The song, which tells of the murders of Catholic and Protestant friends, includes the line: "The tears of the people ran together".
As relatives carried the white coffin out of the house, the family played The Fields of Athenry with the poignant line, "Michael, they have taken you away".
Among those gathered outside was the DUP mayor of Ballymena, Tommy Nicholls. Gina McIlveen had invited the MP for North Antrim, the Rev Ian Paisley, to attend the funeral, but he phoned the family on Tuesday to say he had to attend the House of Commons.
Politicians who attended the Mass included MLAs Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin, Seán Farren of the SDLP and the Alliance party leader, David Ford, along with town councillors. The local priest for Kirkinriola parish, Fr Paul Symonds, described Michael as someone who was deeply loved by his family and popular with his peers and teachers. "He radiated joy . . . he made people happy and he was respectful," he said.
Fr Symonds spoke of the crucifixion of Christ as the world's darkest hour and said that on May 7th, "darkness descended on Ballymena" with this "wanton murder". He said Michael had gone to Christ and that, "like his Saviour, he died a brutal and unjust death".
He paid tribute to the family for their "quiet dignity". They had uttered no words of bitterness or recrimination and had expressed gratitude for the support they had received from Protestants as well as Catholics.
He pointed out that Michael had shared his last meal, a takeaway pizza, with a Protestant friend. He appealed for an end to sectarianism: "Michael will not have died in vain if his death leads to a new vision for Ballymena and, indeed, the whole of Northern Ireland," he said.
As the funeral made its way to Crebilly graveyard, one young woman (who does not wish to be named) said she took a short-cut through the Ballykeel estate and her car was attacked by loyalists.
"We were wearing Celtic tops and this crowd of men started hitting the car and pushing posters saying, 'Loyalists Under Threat' up at the windows,", she said. "They called us Fenian bastards. We were scared to death".
President Mary McAleese has described the murder of Michael McIlveen as an outrage that demands a response from community leaders in the North. Speaking in Butte, Montana, during an eight-day visit to the US, she said the murder was an expression of a deep current of sectarian hatred.
"Michael McIlveen's death is part of the story of all that is wrong and all that has been wrong and all that remains to be addressed."
She said the murder showed that, despite the end of republican political violence and encouraging moves by loyalist paramilitaries, the North still needed strong, anti-sectarian action.