Obituary: Ciaran Cassidy

Terrorism was nothing new to Veronica Cassidy - mother of Ciaran Cassidy, who was killed in the Piccadilly Line blast.

She had worked in Belfast City Hospital during the Troubles of the 1970s, but must have thought she had escaped the random killing of such attacks when she moved to England.

"Most people know someone that was killed in the Troubles," her husband, Sean, said in light of their son's death. "But you don't expect it to happen in London."

Twenty-two-year-old Ciaran Cassidy, who was on his way to work on the morning of the London attacks, had an eye for the pleasures in life.

"He didn't care for politics or war," said his close friend Joe Hayes at Mr Cassidy's funeral, "but for his family, his friends, for his football and his weekend drink."

Those sentiments were echoed by his father. "We will remember him as a happy-go-lucky boy who enjoyed life and lived for his weekends and going out with friends," he said.

As Mr Cassidy travelled to work on the morning of 7 July 2005, his thoughts, perhaps, were on his planned trip to Australia.

He had been saving for several months, salting away money earned from his job as a shop assistant for a printing company in Chancery Lane.

Or maybe he was mulling the prospects for his beloved Arsenal football club in the forthcoming season.

As a child he dreamed of playing for the team and was often at Highbury to cheer them on a Saturday afternoon.

His father Sean had moved to the UK from rural Ireland at a time when work was short in the Republic, and married Veronica, a nurse, from Enniskillen in Northern Ireland.

Ciaran was born in October 1982 and brought up in a close-knit religious family in Finsbury Park, north London, along with his older sister Lisa. They had 25 aunts, 16 uncles and 42 cousins living in Ireland.

He attended the nearby Christ the King Roman Catholic primary school in Islington and St Thomas More Roman Catholic secondary school in Wood Green, before completing his education at La Swap Sixth Form College in Highgate.

At the inquest into his death, Mrs Cassidy said in a statement on behalf of their family: "When Ciaran died, we received many letters from solicitors, judges and lawyers who knew Ciaran in the shop, all saying the same thing: Ciaran was a happy, smiling, friendly boy.

"He had no hate in him and no ego. He loved his family, friends, Arsenal, his weekend drinks and his mother's dinners.

"Ciaran would talk to anyone. Friends often complained about him walking down the road and stopping to talk to so many different people, it would take forever to reach their destination.

"Losing Ciaran has left a great void in our family's life. We miss his smiling face, his presence, his text messages: 'What is for dinner?'"