THE parish priest of Oranmore, Co Galway, spoke yesterday at the funeral of retired farmer Tom Casey (68), of the nation's shock at the manner of his horrific death. This was now giving way to feelings of outrage.
For the local community in the small village, Fr John O'Dwyer said, there was feelings of some guilt too, that people could not protect him "an innocent victim of the violence that is suddenly part of modern lite both in the cities and even in the remotest parts of Ireland.
"This week we were faced with the darkness of death, which is all the more frightening when it, comes so cruelly and tragically. Nothing can prepare us for something so scandalous and horrific as this the shock, the fear, the anger we feel," he said.
He was a quiet man who had chosen a solitary life. It had ended with him being brutally attacked in his own home. "We are shocked and saddened now, feeling a little guilty maybe that we were unable to protect Tommy. But we must have courage. Good will come of this. Darkness makes us look harder for light.
Fr O'Dwyer, chief celebrant at the Requiem Mass, paid tribute to the good in the community those including the gardai who realised some years ago that people like Tommy were perhaps at risk, helped him and yet respected his privacy. What had been feared materialised, however, leading to "horror and revulsion, not only in the community, but in the country at large at the brutality inflicted on Tommy".
He added "It gives rise to outrage that a man could be kicked and beaten in such a horrific way.
Over 500 people attended the, funeral, including community representatives and local politicians who sympathised with the chief mourners, Mr Casey's cousins. In a piercingly cold wind, they accompanied Tom Casey on his last journey to the local cemetery at Rinville.
Some time last weekend his solitude was savagely encroached upon and he was left for two days to die in his own blood.