Priest calls for peace as friends and family gather to mourn Campion
Gary Campion, who is on remand charged with murder, was refused temporary release to attend the funeral of his brother, Noely, who was shot dead in Limerick last Thursday.
As the funeral cortege, headed by a horse-drawn hearse bearing the €6,000 mahogany casket, moved along Mulgrave Street to Mount St Lawrence cemetery, it stopped briefly outside the gates of Limerick prison.
Inside the walls, inmates including Gary Campion, applauded a final salute as cars in the cortege sounded horns.
Earlier a priest pleaded for an end to the spiral of revenge and death when addressing mourners at Mr Campion’s funeral.
He is the eighth Limerick man claimed by the bloody feud between the McCarthy Dundon and Keane Collopy factions.
Noel (Noely) Campion, a 35-year-old father of two from Moyross, was shot dead while riding pillion on a motorbike last Thursday.
Passers-by watched in horror as he was gunned down on a busy street, near the Treaty Stone. Gardaí suspect he was murdered in reprisal for the September 17 murder of “Fat Frankie” Ryan in Moyross. Noel Campion’s brother Gary has been questioned in connection with that murder.
Addressing about 150 mourners at Mr Campion’s funeral Mass in Corpus Christi Church the parish priest of Moyross Fr Frank O’Dea said retaliation and revenge were not the way.
“Some of you listening may think that seeking retaliation or revenge for Noel’s death will be the way to help him find peace, but you know in your heart that it will not. Those who seek revenge take the path of weakness. Those who seek peace take the path of courage.
“We pray that each of us, especially those who feel angry because of how Noel died, will choose to take the path of courage, the path that leads to peace.”
Defence Minister Willie O’Dea, who canvassed in Moyross yesterday, condemned the street parties held on Thursday night in parts of Limerick to celebrate Mr Campion’s death.
Mr O’Dea said the current situation was extremely worrying.
“It is a sad day when people are out celebrating a murder regardless of who the victim is. That is a reflection on what society has come to. It is a reflection on how certain people in society, because of their background or the example they have been shown by their parents or their elders, how they regard life and death.
“It is extremely sad, extremely regrettable and I can’t speak strongly enough about it, but the fact of the matter is the job of government, whoever is in government, is to deal with it.”
Mr Campion’s solid mahogany casket was brought from the church to Mount St Lawrence cemetery by horse-drawn hearse.
His prize skewbald stallion “Roller” was led at the front of the cortege which stopped briefly at the scene of the murder at High Road, Thomondgate.
Two of his brothers were refused temporary release from prison to attend the funeral. Willie Campion is serving life for a 1998 murder and Gary Campion is on remand charged with the murder of club security man Brian Fitzgerald in November 2002.
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