Every school morning Sharon Grace could be seen pushing a buggy as she and her two youngest children accompanied 10-year-old Amy to school.
"You'd see them there, walking together," said one friend of Sharon's, pointing to the footpath which winds its way towards Barntown National School.
"She was a devoted mother as far as I could see. The question everyone's asking is how could she do this? What drove her to it?"
It's a question on the lips of everyone in the small community of Barntown, Co Wexford, ever since the bodies of the 29-year-old mother and her two youngest children, Abby (3) and Mikahla (4), were found in the River Slaney on Sunday morning.
Sharon Grace lived apart from the separated father of her two youngest children, Barry Grace, a former taxi driver from Wexford town. The couple had been married for several years before their break up.
According to her sister, Lillian Reddy, Sharon became upset about the possibility of losing access to her two youngest children in recent days. "She was very worried about her children and whether she was going to have access to them. She just didn't want to leave them. She was in bad form since the Thursday, she wasn't in her right mind.
"The last time I saw her was at 3.30pm on Saturday. We were planning to have a few drinks that night and she asked me to bring home a bag of coal and a packet of fags. I never saw her again after that."
Alarm bells were first raised when Amy came back from a girl guides trip on Saturday. The three-bedroom council house where the family lived was empty.
"Amy had been complaining on the trip that she had a toothache and that she wanted to see her mother," said a neighbour, wiping away a tear. "Everyone's heart goes out to the poor girl who's left behind."
Sharon is thought to have taken a taxi into Wexford town on Saturday night with the two children. When she didn't return, a frantic search got under way. It ended early on Sunday morning after three bodies were found floating in the River Slaney by fishermen.
Yesterday, at Kaats Strand, not far from Wexford Bridge, bouquets of flowers were being left by locals close to the shore. "It changes the way we'll think of this place, that's for sure," said Joe Bradley (68), who has been fishing in the area since the 1950s. "A few of the lads are saying that they'll move their boats downstream. It's very upsetting for everyone."
The quiet strand, located down a narrow laneway, is a tranquil area frequented by morning walkers and a collection of part-time fishermen and small-boat owners.
"That a tragedy like that should happen in a place like this is unthinkable," said Paddy Kennedy (62), who walks the strand regularly. Suicide, however, is nothing new to Wexford. Fisherman talk about the alarming number of young people who have taken their own lives by jumping off the bridge that can be seen in the distance.
Local politicians said there were three other deaths by suicide in the area in the last week and point to the rise in the number of people taking their lives across the county, especially in towns such as Wexford and Enniscorthy.
Back in Barntown, at the local cemetery, a 64-year-old woman laid a wreath and potted red geranium at the graveside of her son who died by jumping off the same bridge 14 years ago today. "I'm out of the house to get away from the news of the mother and daughters' death on the radio," she said.
"It brings back all those memories. I knew her, she was a lovely girl, with lovely daughters. Who knows what was going through her head at the time.
"It's incredible that things can get so bad for someone that they feel they have to take their life like that. That girl needed support. She can't have got it. I just feel very, very sorry for everyone affected by this."