For a second day, work came to a sombre stop in Ireland's own world trade centre.

The day beforehand it had been shock; yesterday it was sorrow, and the workers at the International Financial Services Centre were glad of the chance to express this - in solidarity with those suffering in the same way across an ocean.

Several hundred stood in the rain for an open air memorial service, huddling under umbrellas emblazoned with corporate logos.

Verifying their success in the banks, investment houses and finance companies that surrounded them, the multi-coloured brollies sheltered the mourners from the worst of the downpour. But there was no shielding them from the terrible sense of vulnerability and loss which pervaded their previously invincible world.

On Tuesday, they had been confidently crossing thousands of miles in an electronic instant, swopping news, instructions and bank notes with American clients and colleagues who might have been in the next room. Then in another instant, everything went quiet.

As they observed a minute's silence yesterday in memory of the dead, a realisation was dawning that some of those who went quiet would never be heard again.

"Everyone was going through their business cards this morning, checking who they knew who might be in there," said Ms Lisa Byrne, an employee of Commerzbank, which has offices close to where the World Trade Centre towers had stood.

Father Derry McCarthy of St Laurence O'Toole's parish, Sherriff Street, led the gathering in prayer and hymns for the victims, who, he said, had died in a disastrous way.

"Death always comes as a shock, but when it comes in such a senseless way, it is all the more severe and it's burning is all the more deep."

Father McCarthy promised that those who had been left behind would not be left alone in their mourning.

Reverend Gary Davidson, pastor of St Mark's Church on Dublin's Pearse Street, thanked the gathering for their show of support.