Hundreds of teenagers, some in school uniform, gathered in stunned silence yesterday evening for the removal service of Raonaid Murray, the teenage girl stabbed to death in south Co Dublin at the weekend.
St Joseph's Church in Glasthule, packed to capacity for the arrival of her coffin, stayed open until midnight to allow her friends and relatives to hold a vigil.
The suburban village came to a halt as the mourners spilled out from the church grounds to the roadway opposite Presentation College where her father, Mr Jim Murray, is headmaster.
Father Eamonn McCarthy, a friend of the Murray family since he served in Ballybrack parish in the 1980s, said prayers over the coffin. He told a hushed church that there were not enough words to express the desolation and pain being experienced by the community and whole nation over Raonaid's death.
He said it was hard to reconcile what had happened with a loving God. He asked for prayers for the family who were devastated. He also referred to the fact that another family might soon experience the tragedy of finding out that one of its members was responsible for Ms Murray's death.
Before the 5.30 p.m. service, Ms Murray's friends gathered outside the church, girls in the blue uniform of St Joseph of Cluny school which she attended up to two years ago on one side. On the other were more recent friends from the Institute of Education and from Dun Laoghaire.
Their parents and the neighbours and friends of the Murray family filed into the church past the shocked teenagers. The church is only 50 yards from the spot where Ms Murray and her friends used to gather in the evenings outside Sandycove DART station up to a few months ago. Members of the same little group, standing in ones and twos outside the church, were among the the most bewildered and lost of the mourners.
The funeral service takes place today at 10 a.m.