A Cork man who lost his sister and her four-year-old daughter when their hijacked plane crashed into the World Trade Centre said that even on the first anniversary of the atrocity the events still seem like a "trailer from a movie".
Mr Mark Clifford, who is getting married next Saturday in Italy, said it took a long time for the family to take in the enormity of what happened in New York on September 11th last year.
Ms Ruth Clifford McCourt (45) and her daughter, Juliana, were heading off for a dream holiday in Disneyland when they died.
"It is very difficult to look at the re-plays of the planes hitting the towers. I still think it is one of the most surreal events in my life. Ruth was a magical person. She was very special. We remember Ruth and Juliana with love and affection. It is very sad to see these people with so much to give no longer with us."
One of the dead woman's brothers Ronnie was in the Trade Centre when it was hit by the first plane but he managed to flee the burning building. An hour later he was informed by his family in New Jersey that his sister and her daughter had been on board one of the doomed planes. Ruth's best friend and Juliana's godmother Paige Farley Hackel also lost her life in the tragedy.
Ms McCourt, originally from the Lough, Cork, was among 56 passengers on the hijacked plane.