Over 1,500 people attended the funeral of murdered Sunday World journalist, Martin O'Hagan in Lurgan, Co Armagh yesterday.
Mr O'Hagan (51) was shot dead just yards from his home as he and his wife returned from a night out on last Friday. Throughout yesterday morning there was a steady stream of callers at the O'Hagan home in Westfield Gardens, Lurgan, as people called to pay their final respects to the murdered reporter.
Prior to the funeral cortege moving off, around 50 members of the National Union of Journalists marched from Lurgan town centre to Mr O'Hagan's home for the funeral service which was conducted by Catholic and Protestant clergy.
Following the short service, Mr O'Hagans widow, Marie, accompanied by her three daughters, Martina (26), Cara (24) and Niamh (15), lead the cortege of over a thousand mourners to the cemetery for the burial.
Pupils from Brownlow Integrated College, which is attended by Mr O'Hagan's youngest daughter, Niamh, lined part of the funeral route.
Colleagues took it in turn to carry the coffin to the nearby cemetery. Among them was Mr Jim Campbell, a Sunday World journalist who survived a loyalist murder bid during the 1980s.
Other mourners included the Junior Northern Ireland Office Minister, Mr Des Browne, and Mrs Br∅d Rodgers the local SDLP assembly member and Northern Minister for Agriculture.
In the cortege were hundreds of journalists from all over Ireland. Also present were editorial staff and colleagues from the Sunday World offices in Dublin and Belfast where Mr O'Hagan had worked. They included Mr Maurice Hayes, representing the Independent News and Media Group, Mr Michael Brophy, managing director of Sunday World Newspapers, Colm MacGinty, editor of the Sunday World, Colm Nolan, financial director of Sunday World Newspapers and crime editor, Paul Williams.
A number of Protestant residents of Lurgan's loyalist Mourneview estate also attended the journalist's funeral. One, who did not want to be identified, said he spoke for all decent Protestants in the area when he condemned the brutal killing of Mr O'Hagan.
Speaking at the committal service, Father Brian D'Arcy described Mr O'Hagan as a tenacious seeker of the truth and said it was up to other journalists to carry on the work for which the Sunday World reporter had died. "Martin was gunned down because he got nearer the truth than the rest of us. He was sadly and violently taken from us", said Father D'Arcy.
The Sunday World's northern editor, Mr Jim McDowell paid tribute to his colleague saying, Mr O'Hagan was a fearless reporter, adding: "He never stepped back from anything. If that's why he died, he died in an honourable cause".
Mr O'Hagan had been the subject of a number of death threats over a period of years. In a call to a Belfast newsroom at the weekend the dissident loyalist grouping, the Red Hand Defenders said it had killed Mr O'Hagan. They said they had shot the journalist for "crimes against loyalists".
Martin O'Hagan is described as the first working journalist to be killed in the Northern conflict. In July 1970 however 24-year-old Zbigniew Uglik was shot dead by the British army during the a curfew on the Falls Road. According to the Lost Lives book Mr Uglik was an amateur photographer who took leave from his regular job to pursue a career photographing the riots in Belfast." He was shot by a British army sniper on the Falls Road.