It was "a vigil for our dear friend Tom O'Gorman, our first opportunity to gather since our hearts were broken at the weekend", journalist Sarah MacDonald told the candle-lit hundreds at St Teresa's Church on Dublin's Clarendon Street last night.
She was speaking at a prayer vigil organised by friends of Mr O'Gorman, who was killed at the weekend at his home on Beechpark Avenue in Castleknock. Then they sang Amazing Grace as a large candle flickered before a photograph of the deceased, along with lines of other candles on the altar rails.
'Hope and despair'
"We are here confronted with a choice between hope and despair,"said Fr Stephen Kelly, a friend of Mr O'Gorman.
"We are confronted with such pain all we can do is turn to Jesus Christ, who can understand our suffering."
A monstrance holding the host was placed on the altar as a Rosary was begun to the Glorious Mysteries, with reflections on each by Irish Catholic editor Michael Kelly. The congregation intoned repeatedly: "Deliver us from evil . . . now and at the hour of our death." A lone female voice sang Pie Jesu.
Fr Kelly said: “We come to this church tonight in shock and in grief. We need the comfort of God’s church, of his people. We need to be with other people who knew and loved Tom.
“We pray for the strength to forgive. Lord give us that grace . . . our faith is our consolation at this time. We pray for Paul and Catherine [Mr O’Gorman’s siblings]. We pray that the Lord console us and give us understanding.”
Close friend
Dr Joe McCarroll, a close friend of Mr O'Gorman, said: "We want to remember Tom and send him home with good prayers, but we are full of horror. The unspeakable circumstances of his death and the added violation of his memory by the indecent coverage of it are making it hard for us to grieve for Tom."
He recalled: “One of the people who had the heavy responsibility of telling others about Tom’s death told me that when asked how he died, he just could not utter the words, they were quite simply unspeakable.”
