McGurk, who was 35 and the father of six children, was shot dead on Aug. 17 in the hallway of his West Belfast home by three armed men, believed to be members of the Real IRA, although no group has claimed responsibility.
The shooting came after a feud developed between members of the dead man’s family and the Real IRA in the Lower Falls area of the city.
Local hostility toward the killers has led to intense pressure on the mainstream IRA to take retaliatory action and some local people have picketed and attacked the homes of suspected Real IRA members.
Several of its activists in the Lower Falls area have left their homes in the wake of the threatened, and real, violence toward them — none of which, however, has been sanctioned by the mainstream IRA.
A priest, speaking at McGurk’s funeral, branded the killers as “cowardly drug traffickers” and “disciples of the devil.” In an unusually tough homily, Fr. Matt Wallace also pleaded with the gang to “give themselves up.”
“The people who committed this atrocious act on an innocent person are nothing but the devil’s disciples,” he said. “If they give themselves up and apologize to the McGurk family, they can start to make amends with God.
“He did not deserve this kind of death. He did not deserve to be murdered in front of his wife. He was murdered because he stood up for the people he loved. He had no political connection.”
The brutal murder has prompted widespread revulsion from area residents and political parties. The murder has all the hallmarks of a personal vendetta rather than anything political.
McGurk was shot five times in the chest, leg and back. The shooting came just over a week after he had been badly beaten by a gang allegedly linked to the Real IRA, but it has been silent about the claims.
McGurk’s mother Mary, who is 73, said her son had been beaten with hatchets and hammers just a week before his murder, after “standing up” to the gang. “They’re just cowards”, she said.
The dead man’s wife, Patsy, was outside the house with two children and another three were asleep upstairs at the time of the shooting. None of the children witnessed their father’s slaying, although Patsy had to ring for an ambulance.
“I could see he was dying and I just wanted to get him to hospital,” she said in a tearful interview. “Thank God the children didn’t see it happen.”
The murder was apparently the result a personal dispute between McGurk and an armed gang thought to have links with the Real IRA. Sinn Fein has called on whatever group was responsible to explain their actions.
“There can be no possible excuse or justification for the murder of this man,” Sinn Fein councilor Fra McCann said.
Added West Belfast MP Gerry Adams: “The people of the Lower Falls are also deeply offended at suggestions that he was the target of a punishment shooting. On the contrary, Danny McGurk was the victim of gangsterism and thuggery.”