Brady calls for end to violence in the North

The head of the Catholic church in Ireland called for an end to the futility and evil of violence in a powerful statement at Pc Ronan Kerr’s funeral today.

Cardinal Sean Brady said the people rejected those blamed for killing the new recruit, 25, on Saturday. He pleaded with parents not to allow their young people to become involved in violence.

Police believe dissident republicans are responsible.

Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officers and senior Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) members stood side by side and helped carry the coffin into the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Beragh, Co Tyrone, in an unprecedented sign of unity.

Pc Kerr 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.

Cardinal Brady told mourners: “The people have said no, never again, to the evil and futility of violence. They have said an emphatic no to the murder and mayhem of the past. Let there be no doubt that the killing of Ronan Kerr was totally unjustified.

“It was an evil deed, an offence against God and a complete rejection of the belief that human life is sacred.”

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 Fein 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 Gaelic football club flanked the cortege led by his mother Nuala, who days ago appealed that his loss not be in vain.

A police hat and gloves were carried on top of the coffin.

The Cardinal added: “Parents and grandparents, I beg you, plead with your children and with your grandchildren not to get involved with violence.

“Never let them be deceived by those who say that Ireland will be united or the union made more secure by war. They are wrong. It is an illusion. Violence has nothing, absolutely nothing, to offer except misery and destruction.

“Choose life, I say, choose goodness, choose peace. That is what God is asking of you. That is what the people of all traditions have been saying to all of us, loud and clear, since the moment of Ronan’s tragic death on Saturday last – ’We do not want this. You do not act in our name.’ In God’s name stop – and stop now!”

He was greeted with waves of applause.

Family relative Fr John Skinnader told mourners he saw the enthusiastic new recruit sitting behind the wheel of a police car last weekend.

“I thought to myself: there is the symbol of the new North, a young man living out his childhood dream to be of service to others, to help protect, make life safer for others, to be a peace-builder in communities and between communities,” he said.

Pc Kerr was a Manchester United fan and played for the youth teams of Beragh Red Knights GAA until the age of 18.

Fr Skinnader added: “Ronan and most of his generation are proud of their culture and their faith tradition, but for them it is a faith and a tradition without walls, that is inclusive not exclusive, that unites rather than divides.”

Members of Beragh Red Knights lined up side by side with police officers and schoolchildren, forming a guard of honour outside the church.

Tyrone GAA manager Mickey Harte, whose daughter Michaela was recently murdered on honeymoon, and other senior GAA officials carried the coffin while police officers took it a final stretch to the churchyard, before members of the family shouldered the burden.

Colleagues from Enniskillen, where he was based, and fellow trainees helped carry the coffin and stood in the guard of honour.

PSNI Chief Constable Matt Baggott and Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan attended, along with Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams. Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson and Ulster Unionist leader Tom Elliott were also present along with leaders of all four main churches.

Pc Kerr’s brother Aaron read a poem of tribute but said the perfect words escaped him. He partly broke down during the verse.

He said: “He spoke about the icing on the cake at his 21st birthday and the celebrations of his friends and family.”

“I never thought what was next would bring us to tears but now is not the time to weep, Ronan passed quickly and softly to sleep,” he said.

The coffin was interred at the cemetery at the Church of St Patrick in nearby Drumduff, where Pc Kerr grew up.