The family of a man murdered in Dublin's brutal gangland feud today appealed for an end to the cycle of killing.
Darren Geoghegan (26) from Drimnagh in Dublin, was shot dead with another man, Gavin Byrne last Sunday week while they waited in a car in a housing estate in Firhouse.
At his funeral at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Drimnagh today, parish priest Father Martin Cosgrove said he appealed in the name of our common humanity to anybody who had influence of any kind to try and bring these deadly activities to an end.
"Otherwise we will have more young deaths, more children orphaned, more families decimated. It does not bare thinking about. Darren's family have asked me to associate them with this appeal," he said.
Fr Cosgrove said when the cycle of killing and despair was at work, there was no way of knowing for whom the bell might yet toll.
A large crowd of mourners attended the funeral in the church where Darren Geoghegan had been baptised and received his first Holy Communion and Confirmation.
"No doubt but that these days were filled with hope for Darren that his life would be long and fulfilled. It hasn't worked out as hoped," said Fr Cosgrove.
The murder of Darren Geoghegan and Gavin Byrne was believed to have promoted a revenge attack which saw Noel Roche (27) shot dead in a car outside the Yacht Pub in Clontarf last week.
His brother John had been killed last March in Kilmainham as part of the long-running feud between the two gangs.
Fr Cosgrove said it was very difficult for any mother or father to see their child die in the circumstances that were present today.
"No mother wants to see her child killed or be killed. Padraig Pearse, the poet when speaking of mothers put it very well when he said 'we suffer in their coming and in their going'."
He added that in extending his sympathy to Darren Geoghegan's family today, he also wanted to extend the same sympathy and understanding to all families who were similarly grieving at this time.
PA