Officers and sporting officials shoulder Kerr coffin as funeral service begins

Police officers and senior nationalist sporting officials shouldered the coffin of murdered Catholic constable Ronan Kerr at his funeral today in an unprecedented show of unity.

President of the Gaelic Athletic Association Christy Cooney and PSNI members carried the remains to the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Beragh, Co Tyrone.

Pc Kerr, 25, was killed when a booby trap device exploded under his Ford Mondeo at his Omagh home, near Beragh, as he got in to go to work on Saturday.

His killing, blamed on dissident republicans opposed to the peace process, has sparked unanimous cross-community condemnation.

The funeral procession was accompanied by unifying images that would have been unimaginable during the Troubles.

First Minister Peter Robinson is the first Democratic Unionist Party leader to attend a Catholic Mass while the presence of Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness at the funeral of a police officer also represents a striking break with the past.

The small Tyrone village ground to a halt as local schoolchildren and members of the officer’s boyhood GAA club flanked the cortege led by his mother Nuala, who days ago appealed that his loss not be in vain.