AT A lamp post on an unprepossessing street came the sound of unrestrained grief.
It was all too much for a Bobby Kuti, a teenager from Nigeria like his friend Toyosi Shittabey who was killed on Good Friday night.
Kuti witnessed his friend being stabbed to death. At lunchtime yesterday, he and dozens of other teenagers gathered in the Tyrellstown Plaza to mark Toyosis death.
When the crowd had swelled to several hundred, gardaí organised a procession through densely packed housing estates built in the Celtic Tiger years to Boulevard Mount Eustace, the street where the incident happened when Toyosi and four of his friends were coming back from the National Aquatic Centre.
Returning to the scene Bobby (16) fell to the ground and sobbed uncontrollably. He collapsed with grief and had to be hauled up by his friends.
It was too much for several others, too, who lay down on the ground and cried in front of a lamp post which had a poster of Toyosi and the slogan “Gone too Soon”. Underneath, the bouquets of yellow Easter lilies piled up beside a Shelbourne scarf which marked his time on the books at the club and a T-shirt with his name on it.
At the recommendation of community youth officer John Kingsley (JK) Onwumereh, the friends of Toyosi made a circle in front of the lamp post.
“By the grace of God, we will never have an incident like this again,” he said. “Amen” responded the crowd.
Pastor Oluwadamilare Adetuberu, from the Redeemed Christian Church of God based in the area, put his burly arms around several of the teenagers. “Somebody wicked, somebody cruel has done this, but look at all the good that has come out,” he said surveying the hundreds of people who had turned up to mourn the teenagers death. Most were Nigerian, but there were plenty of Irish people too.
They would hold a rally of support in his Hartstown community school, they would make a record in his honour, they would make the best out of their grief, he promised.
“We will be stronger for this by the grace of God,” he said. “Amen,” replied the crowd again.
The Nigerian ambassador, Dr Kemafo Nonyerem Chikwe, showed her appreciation for the turnout. “I appreciate the solidarity from everybody. I see all different nationalities,” she said and urged the crowd to be strong in the face of their grief.
Blanchardstown community liaison officer Sgt Vincent Connolly told the crowd that he had a message of condolence from President Mary McAleese.
“Her thoughts and her words of sympathy are for everyone here,” he said.
He thanked everybody who had co-operated with the investigation. “I just wish to say to the people if they have anything to say to us, please call us,” he said. “We cannot do it without you.”
The gathering had something of the Christian revivalist meeting about it, but Toyosi was a Muslim and a local imam prayed in front of the lamp post. His prayers were in English and Arabic. Then Pastor Adetuberu exhorted the crowd to clap for Toyosi and they did.
The grief was tinged with anger and a group of teenagers, seething from the death of their friends, broke away and charged after a car they associated with the attack. Windows were smashed.
Tyrellstown is one of the most racially diverse areas in Ireland with some estimating that half of those living there were born outside Ireland.
Socialist Party councillor Ruth Coppinger, who lives in the area, said it was like the “Celtic Tiger on steroids” with a maximum density of apartments and houses and minimum facilities for local people.
Despite its problems, there had been no such violent racial incidents in the past and there would not be in the future.
“We need to come together and tackle these issues in a united way and not let these things simmer,” she said.
Two-thirds of the pupils who go to the local national school in Mulhuddart are non-Irish nationals and half of those are from Nigeria.
“We don’t have a problem with the children if the adults behave responsibly in the things they do and say,” said school principal Sr Carmel O’Halloran.