The three women victims of a road accident in Co Laois last Monday were buried in a hillside cemetery near their homes yesterday.
Hundreds packed St Mary's Church, Wolfhill, Abbeyleix, and hundreds more stood outside, where Requiem Mass was relayed to them.
Ms Josie Kelly (41) and her daughter, Ms Lisa Kelly (19) were buried beside their sister-in-law and aunt, Ms Sandra Kelly (38), who moved to Ireland from England with her family last year.
The President, Mrs McAleese, was represented at the funeral by her aide-de-camp, Capt P. O'Connell, and a message of sympathy to the families from the President was read at the Mass.
During the Mass, the congregation was asked to pray for the recovery of the driver of the car involved in the accident. He is in a a critical condition in hospital in Dublin.
The three women were out for a walk on the main Athy to Castlecomer road at Farnan, near Ballylinan, on Monday morning when they were struck by a car.
The President sent her deepest sympathies to the bereaved families and the congregation was told that she was arranging to have a special Mass said for them this weekend.
In his homily, Father Dennis Murphy, the parish priest of Doonane, told the congregation, many of whom were weeping, that in the words of Jesus Christ, "this hour will pass".
He said the ways of God sometimes seemed very strange, and no one who knew the families could ever forget what had happened on that fateful day.
"The two mothers can never be replaced and two husbands, Pat and Sammy [Liam] had been left, and their seven children had been left without mothers," he said.
"Lisa has been taken away long before her hopes and joys could be realised. But this hour will pass and there is always hope and love and God is love," he said.
Earlier, he had accepted gifts taken to the altar by members of the family. Lisa Kelly's boyfriend, Pat, brought a gift to the altar of her student notes from Carlow College. He also brought a small china doll he had given to her at Christmas.
At the end of the Mass, Father Hugh Kavanagh, a parish priest in Luton, England, where Sandra came from, spoke of the way she had integrated into the area when she came Ireland with her husband, Sammy.
He said that in the short time she had lived here she had endeared herself to the local people and had embraced Irish culture to the fullest.
She had converted to Catholicism and had a deep religious faith which she passed on to her children.