GANGLAND violence in the Republic has claimed dozens of lives over the last five years.
However, there has been nothing comparable to the savage, barbaric, ruthless murder of a teenager decapitated by a drug gang, his mutilated body used as a warning to others.
Keane Mulready-Woods was a young person from Drogheda caught up on the periphery of a feud that has already claimed the lives of two people
He was 17 years old, still a child.
The people who plotted to abduct, kill and mutilate him believed they were sending a sinister message to their rivals.
His limbs were dumped in the Coolock estate in Dublin's northside, a place no stranger to gangland violence.
His head was reportedly to be dumped outside another house. Instead the gang responsible set fire to a car with it still inside.
Keane was a young lad out of his depth in a dangerous world with ego-driven personalities who have - in the pursuit of power - lost all humanity.
He had a family who loved him and in the days after he went missing they made appeals on social media.
"Please go home cuz or tell us you're safe, we’re all worried sick," said one relative.
"Has anyone seen my brother he's only 17 and he’s missing since yesterday evening and no one heard from him," posted his frantic sister.
In the wake of the murder of investigative reporter Veronica Guerin in 1996, the Irish government rushed through legislation to seize the assets of godfathers of crime.
But since then crime has changed, criminals have changed, society has changed and become more desensitised to violence. Murders no longer attract the same level of moral outrage.
The criminals involved in the Drogheda feud that claimed young Keane's life do not own horses and stables, they do not live in gated mansions.
They reside in housing estates, they spend money as quick as they make it, they live each day like it was their last.
It might be a lifestyle that appears flash when compared to their neighbours, but in terms of assets there are no offshore bank accounts to target.
Those responsible for this murder have shown they have no boundaries, they are capable of just about anything. They must be apprehended, brought before the courts and jailed for a very long time.
And politicians must also play their role - inner city young people deserve a chance in life so they are not lured by criminality to be used and abused by those who care not a jot for their welfare.
