Dusk had given way to darkness and the Comeragh Mountains had been lost in a heavy grey mist as murder victim Mrs Mary Walsh began her sad final journey home to the village of Kilrossanty in Co Waterford last night.
The remains of the popular mother of two adult daughters were brought from Dungarvan along the nine mile route to St Brigid's Church in Kilrossanty where Mrs Walsh will be buried today following requiem Mass.
Leading the many mourners were Mrs Walsh's husband, Pa, her daughters Karen and Paula, her elderly mother Mary, her brother Thomas and her sisters Breda and Martina.
Locals had closed off the main road into the village and directed mourners to park their cars in fields as a large crowd gathered for the removal.
There were similar scenes earlier in Dungarvan where all the estates around Kielys funeral home and Wolfe Tone Road were packed with cars as over 2,000 mourners went to pay their respects to the late Mrs Walsh.
Mourners began arriving at the funeral home shortly after 6 o'clock and it took almost three hours for all of them to pay their respects.
Mrs Walsh disappeared on Monday morning after leaving her home in Glendalligan, Kilrossanty shortly before 9 a.m. and her body was found two days later locked in the boot of her blue Hyundai coupé which had been abandoned in Cathal Brugha Street in Waterford city some 20 miles away.
One onlooker said: "People from all over Waterford just want to come and show their support for the family and say how sorry they are for them in their time of need."