The LVF murder victim, Mr Seamus Dillon, gave his life to save the lives of many young Tyrone people when he was shot dead outside a Dungannon hotel on Saturday night, a priest said at his funeral yesterday.
"Those who murdered him were happy to get someone, and that someone, unfortunately, was Seamus Dillon," Father Seamus Rice told mourners in St Mary and Joseph's Church in Coalisland, Co Tyrone.
Mr Dillon (46) was working as a doorman in the Glengannon Hotel when LVF gunmen, seeking revenge for the murder of their leader Billy Wright, opened fire on him and other security men outside a function room 12 hours after Wright's killing. Hundreds of young people were attending a disco inside at the time.
Mr Dillon and his colleagues had approached the gunmen when they drove into the hotel car-park. "I have no doubt that when Seamus Dillon was brutally murdered he gave his life to save other people," Father Rice said, adding that Mr Dillon's family had forgiven the killers and had asked that no retaliation be taken.
He said progress would only be made in Northern Ireland with forgiveness, prayer and dialogue. "We get nowhere by refusing to speak to one another," the priest said, adding that everybody "must recognise other people's right to believe and hold their political views and their religious views".
Mr Dillon was a former republican prisoner and had served a life sentence for murder. He cut all ties with the IRA after his release from jail in 1994.
Father Rice said Mr Dillon had "a very tough" and "a very unusual" life and that he was "a victim of the times" in which he lived. "If the time had been different, Seamus might never have found himself in those circumstances." He had tried to put the past behind him and rebuild his life when he was released from prison.
Earlier hundreds of mourners walked behind Mr Dillon's coffin as it was carried from his parents' home in Brackaville outside Coalisland to the small hilltop church overlooking the town. A guard of honour was provided by the local GAA club, and a red-and-white jersey Mr Dillon had worn when he played for the Owen Roes GAA club was draped across the coffin.
Mourners were led by Mr Dillon's elderly mother, Bridget, his wife, Tina, children Gary (23) and Joanne (16) and stepson Blake. His father was too ill to attend. Mrs Bridget Dillon clutched a single red rose as she walked the half-mile journey behind her son's coffin. Blinds and curtains were drawn in every house along the route.
The Sinn Fein MP for Mid-Ulster, Mr Martin McGuinness, and a Sinn Fein councillor, Mr Francie Molloy, joined the cortege as it reached the church, which was packed. Hundreds more stood outside throughout the ceremony.
Mr Dillon's daughter, Joanne, broke down in tears as she said a prayer during the Mass. As the coffin was taken from the church for burial, I Will Always Love You was sung. A British army helicopter hovered nearby as prayers were said at the grave.
Floral wreaths spelling "daddy", "brother", "son" and "uncle" were spread by the grave side. Mr Dillon's son, Gary, had left a handwritten note: "Daddy, I will always love you and will never forget you."
After the burial, Mr Rodger Dillon, the victim's brother, strongly rejected comments made in the media that his brother was a member of the IRA at the time of his death. "My brother was not a member of the IRA. He was trying to rebuild his life. He had married, he was in love with the girl he married, his stepson and his two children. For the first time in his life, he was happy and content."
He said his brother had severed all links with the republican movement since his release from jail in 1994. Mr Dillon said he did not believe his brother was targeted because he had not worked at the hotel during the previous four weekends. The family pardoned the killers, he said. "We do not want any retaliation on behalf of my brother. We don't want anyone to suffer. We want the peace process to work for justice, equality and the end to discrimination."
He said if it had not been for the actions of his brother and the other security men in the hotel there would have been "mass murder" on the night of the attack.