MRS Vera Feeney and her daughter, Deirdre (17), should have arrived in Kilmore, Co Roscommon, at 6 p.m. yesterday. Instead, at the bungalow where Mrs Feeney would have spent the next three weeks with her aged parents, Jimmy and Gretta Glancy, her wake was beginning.
The flickering hope that the New York based Feeneys might not have been on the ill fated TWA flight was extinguished near 6 p.m yesterday when a niece from New York called to confirm their worst fears.
Vera and her daughter had been travelling to Paris because her husband, Mr John Feeney, from Dowra, Co Leitrim, worked for the company and was using concession flights. They should have arrived in Paris and from there flown to London and made it back to Dublin and on to Dangan to their kinfolk by 6 p.m.
Instead, shocked villagers were trooping to the neat bungalow 1 1/2 miles from the picturesque village of Kilmore, to pay their respects to one of the most popular families in the area.
For most of the day, Father Ricky Divine, the local priest, had stayed with the elderly couple and the other grown up children, waiting for the good news which never came and keeping alive, some spark of hope.
"I was contacted at 10.30 a.m. yesterday and went down to do what I could to help the family. It's been a terrible tragedy for the family and for the area," he said.
Mr Sean Cox, a brother in law of the missing woman, said it was his daughter who had put the happy holidaymakers on the flight to Paris and had phoned last evening to confirm their worst fears.
"She is at Kennedy Airport with John, Vera's husband, and they tell us her body has not yet been found, neither has her daughter's," he said.
The family said Vera travelled to Ireland every year, normally with her husband. Deirdre was their only child.
"He could not come this year because of problems with leave, but she and Deirdre were coming as usual," said Mr Cox. "They should have been arriving just about now," he added sadly.
He said the Glancy parents were too upset to speak to the media because of their treatment by one tabloid daily which took photographs of them without the family's permission.
Vera, the second of eight children, had emigrated to the US in the late 1960s and met her husband there. "She liked nothing better than to come home and spend the time quietly with her parents decorating their house and cleaning. She loved it here," said one of her neighbours.
It was obvious this was a two way love affair in the affectionate way she was being spoken of in the sleepy Shannonside village thrust into the international headlines by the horrific events of Wednesday night.
. The Taoiseach has sent a letter of regret to President Clinton about the TWA crash. "It was with deep sadness and regret that I learned of the terrible loss of life sustained as a result of the air disaster on the TWA flight from New York this morning," he said.
He extended his deep sympathy, on his own behalf and on behalf of the Government, to Mr Clinton and to the relatives of those who died in the tragedy.