The children, mostly little boys, were a reminder of just how small five- and six-year olds are. They were very good. Their mothers had brought tissues. Their fathers ruffled their hair. One little boy wore a combat tee-shirt with the slogan 'Survival Gear'.

The white coffins did not seem that small, until seen against the bulk of the adult coffin. The bodies of Glen (10) and Andrew (6) preceded that of their mother, Mary Keegan (nee Flynn, 41), both on their way into the Church of the Holy Spirit, Ballyroan, Rathfarnham, and on their way out.

"What words do you use?"

said Fr Greg Howard in his homily. "What words do you use?"

He said that the whole country sympathised with the Keegans and the Flynns.

He said that people died of heart attacks every day and died of strokes every day and that there should be recognition of diseases of the soul and of the spirit.

He said that it was important to remember Mary Keegan as a bubbly, loving person who was a good daughter and a good mother. "It was only a moment, " he said. "It was only a moment."

Once the three coffins had entered the already full church, the crowd swelled again as the people who had stood outside the church in the freezing cold, ready to receive them, had flooded in to stand in the aisles. The Keegan and Flynn families were rendered invisible by the throng.

The funeral mass, with six concelebrants, was remarkable for the silence of the enormous congregation.

Not a baby cried until after Holy Communion.

Afterwards Bishop Eamon Walsh of Wexford spoke. He addressed the "young people" as he called them . . .

and people don't come much younger than this. Bishop Walsh said they had been given a burden which was way beyond their years. He said that if they remembered anything that Glen or Andrew had done, any kindness they had performed, then the children should try and continue it for them. "Because their lives were cut short, " said the bishop.

The boys' coffins were brought up the aisle on wheels, their father, Brian, with his hand on one. Mary Keegan's coffin was carried by male relatives. Outside, the boys' coffins were placed in one hearse and their mother's in another.

It was extremely cold and the pupils of St Treasa's school, where Glen was a