Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson joined Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, North Secretary Owen Paterson, and opposition politicians from both sides of the border to attend 25-year old PC Kerr’s Catholic funeral mass in the County Tyrone village of Beragh.
In one of many symbolic gestures demonstrating wider public revulsion at the terrorist killing of PC Kerr, the Gaelic Athletic Association – which before devolution banned its members from joining the police or Army in Northern Ireland – joined with officers from the Police Service of Northern Ireland to form a guard of honour for the coffin.
The newly qualified officer died when a bomb, placed by so-called dissident “republicans”, exploded under his car outside his home.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions organised a rally in Belfast at the same time as the funeral on to allow people to express their condemnation.
