No news report could fully describe the grim task being undertaken under a clear November sky.
A line of gardai was searching the Cavan town dump off the Cootehill Road. In protective clothing and inoculated against ratborne diseases such as Weil's, the gardai had been digging through nearly four weeks of rubbish in the search for the remains of a baby.
About 10 gardai were searching systematically through a mountain of refuse for the remains of the infant, which was born to an 18-year-old student just over three weeks ago.
She had carried the secret of her pregnancy alone. Her birthing was alone, in the house she shared with some other students, while they were at classes.
She panicked, and placed the baby - which she believed was stillborn and between two and three months before full term - in a plastic bag which she then placed in a wheelie bin.
She told no one of her trauma and, by all accounts, went to college the following day. But the secret was too heavy to bear and she told a friend who told her ageing parents some weeks later.
They immediately contacted the Garda and last Friday the sad search began to find the remains. It is a mammoth task. The masked team of men prodded and turned over the mountains of waste, helped by a JCB digger, working behind a Garda barrier. Their task is a difficult one on all fronts.
The most frequently asked question in Cavan town yesterday was why? Most people who would speak on the subject wanted to know why the search was being carried out at all.
The official answer to that is that the gardai must find the body on foot of the information they were given about the incident. The investigation must go on.
Everywhere in the cathedral town of Cavan there was immense sympathy for the young woman, who is currently undergoing counselling. But they quickly pointed out she was not a Cavan girl, but from a village outside the county.
The sympathy is matched only by the demand for privacy: no one, not even those normally most vocal of residents, the local politicians, was prepared to go on record.
A woman at the constituency office of one politician, on being told why her boss was being sought, proffered the advice that the media should not be involved at all.
A woman, active in local community groups and who has been a friend of mine for many years, said our friendship would end immediately if I used her name.
She did tell me, however, that while people are very sympathetic towards the young woman, they cannot understand why this terrible incident took place.
"All the supports are here for a young woman who gets pregnant and, unlike 15 years ago, contraceptives and contraceptive advice are freely available in this town," she said.
"Cavan is not a backward town and attitudes have changed over the years. The supports were there for this poor young woman if she only had the sense to use them," she said.
The reference to 15 years ago was to the tragic case of Ann Lovett (15), the Granard, Co Longford girl, found dead beside the body of her new-born infant son, under a statue of the Virgin Mary in the local churchyard.
The memory of this tragic incident is still very fresh in the region. It is a period of social history which many would prefer to forget but this latest incident, now being called "The Cavan Baby", has brought those memories to the surface again.
A local schoolteacher, who also wanted to remain anonymous, said reports in some of the Sunday newspapers indicating that fellow students knew the woman was pregnant and that their offers of help were rejected, would appear to be untrue.
"From what I can gather, she kept the matter to herself. She would have had full support if she had told even her fellow students," he said.