The young Galway priest who was killed in Uganda on Thursday wrote to relatives a fortnight ago telling them the area was becoming safer as guns were being confiscated from tribes.
Father Declan O'Toole (31), from Curraghmore near Headford, was travelling with two Ugandans when their car was ambushed in a remote region of the east African country. All three men were shot dead.
Father O'Toole was a member of St Joseph's Society for Foreign Missionaries. The order is more commonly known as Mill Hill Missionaries because of its Mill Hill headquarters in London.
There was frequent tribal conflict in the region in recent months, and Father O'Toole was engaged in peace work, mediating between the tribes.
In the recent letter he said the government was disarming the Karamojong tribe. and guns had completed disappeared from public view.
It is understood Father O'Toole was returning from a peace meeting with two parish council members when their car was stopped by a lone gunman dressed in soldier's clothing.
An Anglican minister travelling in a car behind them witnessed the incident. He and his driver were shot at as they fled. The driver was injured in the attack.
Father O'Toole was ordained by Dr Michael Neary, Archbishop of Tuam, in June 1997 in the parish of Claran-Headford. "There was great celebration in the parish that day," his uncle, Mr John O'Toole, recalled yesterday.
The young priest went to Uganda that September and has been there since. He came home for holidays, most recently to see his brother after he was in a car accident in October.
His family were shocked and devastated at his death, said his uncle. Declan was the eldest of three children: he had a brother, Kenneth, and two sisters, Ita and Sharon.
Speaking on Galway Bay FM yesterday, Ita said her brother loved every day of his job. He kept in regular contact with the family and had been due to phone home this week.
"He was one of those guys who went along and did his business without any fuss," his uncle said. "God sent him to do this job and he got on with it. He was a very jolly fellow, very good-natured. He loved to keep in contact with Galway football and hurling."
His Mill Hill colleagues were heartbroken, said the bursar, Father Joe Jones. "He was one of the nicest people you could meet, a bright young lad. We are all dumbstruck. If it's that bad for us, how is it for the O'Toole family?" he said.
Father O'Toole was the only Irishman working in the remote parish of Panyangara, in the Kotido district. The village is an eight-hour drive from the Ugandan capital, Kampala.
Funeral arrangements were unclear last night. Parishioners liked to have their priests buried with them, Father Jones said, but for the sake of the family the order would like to see his body returned to his family if possible. However, the remoteness of Panyangara might make that difficult.
The Mill Hill Missionaries are an international missionary order with about 700 members. They have about 30 members in Ireland.
Ms Liz O'Donnell, Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, said she and Mr Cowen wished to express their deepest condolences to the O'Toole family, the other victims' families and the order.
Tributes were paid to Father O'Toole by the Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Rev Seán Brady, and Dr Michael Neary, Archbishop of Tuam.
"Father O'Toole's death is a reminder of the extraordinary commitment, courageous faith and heroic generosity of our Irish missionaries throughout the world, who minister, often in very difficult circumstances, far from their families and homes," Archbishop Brady said.
Dr Neary said it was "hard to believe that the life and ministry of this dedicated and thoroughly likable young priest could have been ended in such a brutal and untimely manner".
