An appeal for "constructive leadership" to bring to an end the cycle of murder, reprisal and grief was made at the funeral of one of the young men shot dead in Dublin last week.
Fr Martin Cosgrove, celebrating the funeral Mass for Darren Geoghegan (26) yesterday, said he was appealing "with every ounce of energy and every ounce of sincerity that I have.
"I appeal in the name of our common humanity to anybody who has influence of any kind to try and bring these deadly activities to an end.
"Otherwise we will have more young deaths, more children orphaned, more families decimated. It does not bear thinking about."
Darren Geoghegan, from Drimnagh, was shot along with Gavin Byrne (30), Firhouse.
Their murders were part of a two-gang drug-trafficking feud in the south of the city, which has so far claimed seven lives.
Several Garda vans were parked around the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Drimnagh during yesterday's funeral.
Leading the 800 or so mourners were the dead man's parents, Marie and David Geoghegan, his younger sister Sinéad, his grandparents and his fiancée Julie, who is expecting their baby in March.
Floral tributes filled the steps to the church, some of them arranged in letters writing "brother", "mate" and his nickname "Fonzie".
Fr Cosgrove said Darren Geoghegan had died "so young, so tragically and so needlessly". In particular, he said, the congregation's thoughts and understanding must be with his family.
He had been brought to the same church 26 years ago "almost to the week" to be baptised and had also made his first holy communion and confirmation there.
"No doubt that those days were filled with hope for Darren that his life would be long and fulfilled. It hasn't worked out as hoped," said Fr Cosgrove.
No mother wanted to see her child kill or to be killed.
"It is out of the course of nature for a child to die before its parents," he said. "How very difficult it is for any mother or father to see a child die in the circumstances that are present today."
Drimnagh parish had a "wonderful community", Fr Cosgrove continued, "built up with hard work and great generosity over the past 60 years".
It now "dared to hope that wiser counsel will prevail. We dare to hope that there will be an end to the destruction of young human life."
A family friend read a letter to the congregation, which the dead man's paternal grandmother had written to him some years ago.
"I love you so much Darren but I am worried about you," she wrote. "I hope and pray you will go back to work. You are a good lad and very good with your hands but you have lost your way. I hope you will see the light before it is too late, because I don't want anything bad to happen to you.
"My heart is aching because it is breaking.
"I love you, Darren, and I want you to have a long and good life."
