Another young man lies fighting for his life in a Dublin hospital as a result of violence on the streets. Another family hangs on the hope that surgical and medical skill can make him whole again.
Other young men and their families wake to the sober realisation of what has happened and wait for the arrival of the detectives with arrest warrants.
It is a picture which indicts modern Irish society. It is not confined to Dublin or the larger cities. Some of the most dreadful assaults of recent times have been in regional towns where most people still know each other on first name terms and where supposed, traditional community values still endure. With each successive incident hopes rise that perhaps a lesson has been learned, that there will be no more of it. But as any garda, paramedic or casualty doctor will affirm, the mayhem continues on the streets.
The recent crime statistics confirm what had been empirically evident for some time. Recorded assaults have trebled in four years. There is no major statistical quirk in this. The system of recording crimes may have tightened up. But actual instances of violence have grown apace with the community's affluence and with the breakdown of traditional controls.
Calls for additional Garda presence on the streets are not misplaced. There is almost always a case for more police activity.
But anyone who is abroad in the violent hours of the dangerous nights knows that the gardaí are putting in a better effort over the past year or so. Policing is at best part of the answer. Indeed, if the Garda's activities were to be matched by a speedy courts system, with condign penalties for offenders, the streets would be a great deal safer.
But there are limits to what can achieved by simple enforcement. Without passing any judgment on what happened at Goatstown, Dublin, on Wednesday night, the brutalising of Irish youth is inextricably linked to an alcohol culture and the availability of money with which to buy drink. A skilled, relentless sales and marketing force drives it all, associating this drug with happiness, success, sex-appeal and even with sporting prowess.
Ranged against this powerful machine are Irish parents, too many of whom have clearly abdicated responsibility for their children's behaviour. They tolerate alcohol abuse at a level which must be unique in Europe. Between supine, ineffectual Irish parents and the alcohol industry it is, unfortunately, an unequal contest.