After the shooting dead of a husband and wife in Co Westmeath on Saturday, Father Fintan Cassidy had a difficult task when he faced his congregation in Turin, seven miles from Mullingar, yesterday morning. Just 17 hours earlier the parish priest had been summoned to administer the Last Rites to Vincent and Mary Cully, who had been shot outside their newly refurbished home about a mile and a half from the church.
In the congregation were not only neighbours of the couple but their brothers and sisters, as well as relatives of the man being questioned in Mullingar garda station about the shootings.
The killings appear to have been the culmination of tensions between the dead couple and a local man going back several years.
Father Cassidy faced a stunned congregation of around 300 people who could not believe that their parish had become the focus of intense media attention following the killings. He told them they were meeting in the shadow of the previous night's tragedy.
He opened Mass by asking the congregation to pray for the souls of Mary and Vincent Cully and the family they left behind. "We pray that they can cope with this tremendous tragedy." He prayed that they would receive tremendous support from their friends and the community. "We pray, too, that the peace of God may return soon to all the homes in the parish," he added.
Twice more during the Mass he prayed for the couple whom, he said, had been "taken away so tragically".
At the end of the Mass the men, women and children drifted out into the pale sunlight, gathering in tight knots around the gates of the octagonal church to talk of the awful events of the previous night. None of them would talk openly to the media. Even the gentlest queries from reporters were met with a wall of silence from a community shocked by events.
That shock had turned into open hostility on Saturday night when photographers were threatened with violence as they stood on the road outside the newly-decorated dormer bungalow where the dead couple lived.
White tents had been placed around the two bodies. Each victim had been shot twice in the driveway beside a row of Cypress trees. Father Cassidy was called on Saturday evening to anoint the bodies as they lay in the driveway. Neighbours gathered to comfort and console the family.
The Cully children - Jacinta, Yvette, Jerome, Adrian and Nigel, ranging in age from 15 to 26 - comforted Jacinta's sevenyear old daughter, Denise Egan, who is understood to have been in the house at the time with a niece of Mrs Cully and the Cullys' younger boys.
Two local men had been plastering the Cully house when the incident occurred. They were treated for shock after the killings.
As news of the shooting spread, neighbours and friends came to the scene. They included Mr Cully's workmates from the Tarkett factory, where he worked until recently before illness forced him to take time off.
According to Father Cassidy, the couple were greatly liked and admired in the parish, where they were deeply involved in GAA activities with their local club, St Muna's camogie and intermediate hurling club, which reached the county finals this year.
"This is a very quiet area," the priest said. "Nothing much happens here. The women play camogie and the men hurling, and there is never any trouble. This is a terrible tragedy."
He said the gardai had arrived at the scene before him and Dr Harbison, the State Pathologist, arrived to conduct a preliminary postmortem before the bodies were removed to Mullingar hospital early on Sunday morning.
The village was decked out in red and white, colours which spoke of a happier time. The little church six miles from Delvin will be full again on Tuesday when it is expected that the couple will be buried in the nearby cemetery.