Keane Mulready Woods: Beheaded Irish youth’s fate ‘is a wake up call for drug users’

Father Phil Gaffney was speaking as mourners gathered today at Holy Family Church in the Ballsgrove district of Drogheda to remember Keane, aged 17, whose dismembered remains were found in separate locations in the Dublin area in mid-January.

Multiple media sources say he was decapitated.

In a homily shared with the press just before the funeral, Fr Gaffney offered sympathies to parents Elizabeth and Barry, sister Courtney, and brothers Darren, Ryan and Jack.

He said: “To bury our dead with dignity is a most sacred duty... There is a great sense of relief that, at last, the waiting has come to an end.”

He condemned those who “took [it] upon themselves to ‘play God’ with regard to the life of Keane... they took upon themselves to be judge and jury, and executioner. What arrogance. What appalling wickedness and evil. God alone is the Lord of Life – from its beginning to its end.”

He added it “would be a total understatement” to say Drogheda had been shocked by the “most gruesome” murder, which he said was the area’s third drug-feud death.

He went on to offer this message: “These violent incidents need to be a wake-up call for all of us as a society to realise that actions have consequences.

“People taking drugs on a social basis have to realise what they are doing is fuelling this situation of violence. The problem arises from the ‘normalisation’ of a drugs culture here in Ireland.

“Drug taking, ‘doing a line of coke’, has become as normal as having a drink. We need a nationwide response from our Government.”