The murder of Daniel McGurk in west Belfast yesterday (Sunday) was a foul deed, executed with appalling brutality in front of his wife and six children. His killers further demonstrated their contempt for the laws of God and man by carrying out the shooting as worshippers gathered barely a hundred yards away for a special Mass to mark the temporary closure for renovations of St Peter's Cathedral.
Dissident republicans have been blamed for the outrage, which came almost five years to the day after similar elements were responsible for the Omagh massacre.
The Real IRA called a ceasefire in the aftermath of Omagh, but has since crawled back out of the gutter to relaunch its evil campaign.
Yet again, it has managed to claim the life of another Irish civilian in the most cowardly circumstances imaginable.
It is worth remembering that three other young men were shot in the legs in nationalist parts of Belfast and Co Tyrone over the weekend.
Mainstream republicans have regularly carried out similar attacks while insisting that they were the protectors of the nationalist people.
In doing so they were prepared to ignore every basic human right which they themselves would automatically claim if they were ever arrested.
Their victims were denied access to lawyers, they were given no opportunity to question the evidence against them, if any existed, and there was no possibility of defence witnesses being called.
If they were lucky, they escaped with mental and physical scars and possibly a permanent limp.
If they were unlucky, like Mr McGurk, they bled to death before they could be taken to hospital.
Those who believe that they can resolve issues through the barrel of a gun are as arrogant as they are wrong.
They are the enemies of all the people of Ireland, and they deserve to be brought to justice for their crimes.
