The 200-year-old, little Church of the Assumption in Paulstown was full 30 minutes before James Healy's funeral Mass was due to begin.
Beside the altar, a silver-framed photograph of the broadly smiling, 30-year-old computer analyst taken on his wedding day two years ago, took pride of place on the coffin.
In a dispute over land at Coolyhune, Co Carlow, Mr Healy was shot last Saturday by a bachelor farmer, Michael Kehoe, who later shot himself and was buried in a separate funeral yesterday.
As many as 100 floral tributes were laid alongside Mr Healy's coffin, including one from his young widow, Yvonne, with a card addressed "To my soul mate".
As she took her seat with her son, eight-year-old James, the choir sang How Great Thou Art, and the parish priest, Fr Laurence Malone, concelebrating the Mass with five others - including Fr Percy Grant who had married the couple - told the sombre congregation that it was prayer that would see them through.
In his homily he said there were few experiences in life harder to take than the funeral of a young person, "especially when that person is a young husband, a son, brother and friend". The tragedy of James's death had stunned the whole community, "especially the tragic circumstances of that death".
He referred to the enormous crowd - "certainly the largest in my time here" - which had gathered up to an hour before the removal on Monday evening, mourners who spoke in hushed tones, before forming lines of four and five people deep, along the streets and in the church grounds.
"A great silence fell on the crowd as the time grew near - the single bell tolled and all was still," said Fr Malone.
"But that quietness, respect and reverence - that real and genuine sense of loss, spoke so much about James. For it was James's personality, his warm-hearted character that drew such a deep and noble response from those who knew him and knew his family.
"James was loved by all. He was generous and caring, he was a loving husband and faithful son and brother. He had an easy manner.
"He was the one people naturally turned to if they wished to discuss a problem. He could make things right."
Fr Malone drew wistful smiles when he described James's great interest in sport; how being a Kilkenny man, he was an ardent supporter of the black and amber.
"But he had another sporting interest too, which was soccer, and for some reason, he picked Liverpool as his team."
He also had a keen interest in music and was "a bit of an authority of the 80s music, I understand".
He finished his homily with a short prayer, "which was written for another person who died young".
"Jesus grew older - he never grew old.
He died young. He arose young.
A melody in the night still sung, A tale in the evening still told.
O beautiful One, undying One! Finish in joy what love has begun, lead us beyond the trying, the living, the dying.
Make us new again, And young.
Forever Young.
Amen."
Be Not Afraid was sung as the gifts were carried to the altar and the gift bearers included Yvonne, who brought up her husband's wedding ring.
"James junior", as Fr Malone called him, was among several family members who read the Prayers of the Faithful.
The concluding prayer, read by Fr Malone, was for the intentions of all and included mention of "all who have been bereaved", a reference to last Saturday's double tragedy.
As the chief mourners - Yvonne and her son, along with James's parents James and Eilish, his brothers Pierce and Brian, sisters Eleanor and Lisa, uncles and aunts - followed the coffin into the bright, warm sunshine of a beautiful Kilkenny day, some 30 blue-and-grey uniformed fourth-class pupils from James jnr's class at Paulstown national school provided a guard of honour.
A crowd of over 1,000, many of them walking, followed the hearse to the cemetery on the village outskirts, where the muted chat was about memories of a "lovely young man".
