The family of a Tipperary carpenter, Mr Martin Coughlan, said the recovery of his body from the World Trade Centre had brought some comfort.
The body of Mr Coughlan (53) was the first Irish casualty to be recovered from the wreckage of the toppled twin towers.
Ms Bridget Coughlan, the victim's sister-in-law, spoke for the family from Coughlan's Bar on Main Street, Tipperary.
"We're just in bits really but it's so good to get his body so we can get him buried," she said.
Ms Coughlan said the family had almost given up hope of finding a body more than a week after the tragedy.
"We never thought we would. It went on so long."
The family were informed Mr Coughlan's remains had been identified yesterday morning.
The funeral is expected to take place in New York early next week, according to a Cappawhite parish priest, Father George Burke.
Mr Coughlan was working on the 96th floor of the second tower to be attacked by terrorists.
Originally from Cappawhite, he had been living in the Queen's district of New York for 14 years.
Mr Coughlan is survived by his wife, Catherine, and four daughters, Orla (27), Eilis (25), Sinead (22) and Denise (17).
He had three brothers - Finbar in Tipperary, Paddy in Cappawhite and Jimmy in Dublin. He also had a sister, Ann, in Tipperary.
Mr Coughlan called his wife in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Something terrible was happening, he told her, and he was trying to get out. He was not heard from again. The plane struck below the floor Mr Coughlan was working on and it is thought he would have been unable to make his way down the tower.
The recovery of Mr Coughlan's body brings to five the number of Irish citizens confirmed dead by the Department of Foreign Affairs.
A spokesman for the Irish Consulate in New York said there had been no formal announcement about how much longer emergency workers would search through the rubble for bodies.
The other confirmed Irish victims are Ms Ruth Clifford McCourt (44) and her four-year-old daughter Juliana, from Cork, who were on the hijacked United Airlines aircraft that crashed into the south tower.
Ashes from the site of the World Trade Centre will be scattered on the site of the Clifford family grave in Cork.
Mr Patrick Currivan (53), an engineer from Dublin, was also on the flight.
The chaplain of the New York Fire Department, Father Mychal Judge (68), whose parents came from Co Leitrim, was giving the Last Rites to a firefighter when he was killed by falling debris from the collapsing towers.
The number of people officially reported missing in the ruins of the World Trade Center rose by 911 to 6,333 yesterday, and rescue workers said it would be a miracle if anyone were still alive nine days after the worst terrorist attack in history.
"The main reason for that is getting numbers from foreign nationals," New York Mayor, Mr Rudi Giuliani told a news conference as he gave the new toll, the first update for two days.
"For example, British nationals are about 250 alone," he said.
"That number may go up or down depending on our checking it against possible duplication from other sources," Giuliani said.
"We may have gotten reports of missing people from business, we might have gotten it individually from their families. . . We haven't had a chance to completely go through that number."
Only five people have been found alive in the mountain of rubble, all on the night after the attack.
Mr Giuliani said the number of dead bodies recovered had increased by eight since Tuesday, to 241.
