In the past year or two Raonaid Murray was one of a group of teenage "Goths" who frequently met across the road from Sandycove and Glasthule DART station. She and her little clutch of friends met and chatted together for hours.
Raonaid had been a pupil at the Harold National School in Glasthule and then at St Joseph of Cluny in Killiney. She left Cluny after her Junior Certificate and attended the Institute of Education in Leeson Street, Dublin, where she completed her Leaving Certificate this year.
The Goths wore distinctive long, hanging dark clothes, and were a little clannish but generally good-natured. There was never any trouble from them.
Her friends are devastated by her murder. None could think of a single person who knew her who could dislike her.
In recent months Raonaid and her friends had gained a little maturity, working in part-time jobs, and had abandoned the Goth look. They were able to afford fashion clothes and were mixing in new circles at discos and pubs in Dun Laoghaire.
On Saturday night, after she left work in the Sally West boutique in Dun Laoghaire Shopping Centre, she crossed George's Street to meet a friend in Scotts pub. She was well known to the other young people there and she had briefly gone out with one of the young barmen in Scotts.
The pub and club scene in Dun Laoghaire is peopled with tough young men from the outlying housing estates. Raonaid's social background, in the leafy heart of Glenageary, is a world apart from theirs.
At around 11.30 p.m. on Friday she parted company with her friend outside the pub and walked towards her home, a journey of 15 or 20 minutes. She was going to collect some money as she intended meeting her closest friend from school days and going on to Paparazzi's disco in Dun Laoghaire Shopping Centre.
By yesterday afternoon the team of gardai set up to investigate her murder were still uncertain which route home she took.
Detectives who went to the murder scene observed where she was attacked (a local person reported hearing a scream at around 12.10 a.m.) and found a pool of blood in the darkest part of the lane, which is heavily overhung by mature trees.
Initial evidence suggests her murderer was on foot and was waiting in the darkness for her. She was stabbed several times with a large knife with a blade maybe 1 1/2["] wide. She staggered almost another 100 yards, clutching her handbag and a carrier bag with the Sally West name. She finally collapsed in Silchester Crescent just around the corner from her home.
The first people to come across her were her sister, Sarah, and two of her friends who had just arrived in a taxi.
Silchester Park is a solidly respectable suburb built in the 1950s, and distinguished by its neat gardens and uniform pebbledashed houses.
Her parents, Jim, headmaster at Presentation College in Glasthule, and Deirdre, are highly spoken of by friends and acquaintances. Their two daughters and son are thought of equally well.
Glenageary is a place where people expect their children to be safe, and Friday night ripped away that sense of security.
The gardai, too, were becoming increasingly concerned yesterday that no obvious motive or suspect had emerged after more than 24 hours of inquiries.
A team of about 50 detectives were variously deployed carrying out minute forensic examination of the murder scene, drawing up and working on lists of witnesses, and examining videos from security cameras in Dun Laoghaire.
The head of the Dublin Metropolitan Area (DMA), Assistant Commissioner Jim McHugh, went to the scene on Saturday morning. The head of the DMA's Eastern Division, Chief Supt Pat Culhane, describing the murder as "a motiveless, very savage, vicious attack", added: "It is an investigation that we must solve and one we will solve."
Leading the investigation is Det Supt Martin Donnellan, one of the force's most distinguished detectives.