Gardai investigating the murder of a Connemara schoolgirl intensified their search of the Carraroe area yesterday following the discovery of vital evidence on Tuesday afternoon.
A team of 50 Garda officers combed the area around where the body of Siobhan Hynes (17) was found, two miles south of Carraroe, on Sunday afternoon.
Their investigations intensified following the discovery of a silver locket and a piece of clothing, both of which she was wearing on the night she disappeared, near Tismeain beach, where her body was found.
Meanwhile, hundreds of mourners attended the removal from her home to Leitir Mor church last night, and hundreds more are expected at her Requiem Mass at 11 a.m. today.
Gardai have set up an incident room at Carraroe, telephone (091) 595565, and are appealing for help in trying to trace Ms Hynes's movements between her last sighting at 12.45 a.m. on Sunday and the discovery of her body at 3.20 p. m. the following day.
A Leaving Cert student at Scoil Chuimsitheach Ciarain, Siobhan was the second child in a family of three girls. Hundreds of people called to the isolated family home at Sconse, west of Leitir Mor, yesterday.
All of the schoolchildren received counselling again yesterday, and classes were due to be suspended today to allow her classmates to attend her funeral. They were to form a guard of honour this morning.
`'Siobhan was a very quiet girl who never gave us any trouble," the school principal, Mr Mairtin O Conghaile, said yesterday. "We have done as much counselling as we could, but no teachers could ever be prepared for an event like this.
"There are no classes, but at least the children are together and they are crying together and consoling each other. There is a lot of fear in the area at the moment.`'