There were harrowing scenes at Our Lady's Hospital, Navan, last night as parents arrived to identify the victims of yesterday's bus crash. Adults and children wept openly as the full horror of the tragedy hit home.
Local gardaí as well as local Minister Noel Dempsey and Damian English TD comforted the bereaved. A nurse and counsellor were assigned to each family.
Fr Peter Farrelly, a parish priest from Kentstown, expressed bewilderment and grief at what had happened. "We have yet to fully identify all the dead," he said.
County council chairman Tommy Reilly said he knew most of the parents of the children on the bus.
"They are from a small area around Navan," he said. "This is the biggest tragedy to hit Meath since a fire in the cinema in Navan about 40 years ago and a road accident some years ago."
Local priest Fr Gerry Dalby shook his head in bewilderment. "Any comment would be inappropriate," he said.
There were also scenes of terrible grief in the Loreto Convent, Navan, last night. Pupils arrived at the school in tears and hugged each other as they asked their teachers for details of the crash.
Teachers said they could not talk to journalists and were still unaware of the full extent of the number of deaths and injuries.
Caroline McDonnell, a teacher at a Montessori school in Kentstown, said the bus had been bringing pupils back from different schools in Navan.
"Some of our neighbours' children were on the bus and they have left to go to the scene." Fr Farrelly said a number of local families made their way to the crash scene while others went to hospitals to find their children.
Shocked locals watched the details of the tragedy unfold on the 9pm television news in Maguire's Pub in Kentstown last night. The stunned expression on their faces, some of whom knew the dead children, told its own story.
Lisa Sheridan said that some of the parents of the children occasionally come into the pub. "We just cannot take it in. It is a terrible tragedy. We don't know what to say."
One local man said: "It is something of a nightmare. I just cannot believe what I am looking at in the news and that it is happening in my parish."
The principal of the Loreto primary school in Navan, Maura Heery, said the news of the crash was met with disbelief. "We are devastated - five young lives lost and so many others seriously injured. It's just a most unexpected event. You never think of something like this happening. You expect children when they are travelling home on school buses to be safe," she said.
"I was thinking of all the times we went on school tours and going out on any day you would never think you would not be bringing the children home to their parents, so it's such a terrible shock to hear something like this," she added.
People prayed silently in the parish church at Beauparc, Co Meath last night in memory of the dead children. Fr Robert McCabe spoke privately to locals who sat in the church, some of them for hours. He said the church would remain open as long as locals wanted to pray.
Local man Tom Mulvany said the community was devastated.
"I would have known the children and their parents," he said. "It will take a long time for our small rural community to recover from this."