The mother of the three young boys murdered in Ballymoney has spoken of her anguish at mistakenly thinking her sons had escaped from their house on Sunday after it was petrol-bombed. The children will be buried later today in Rasharkin, Co Antrim. Ms Christine Quinn (29), a Catholic, who was released from hospital yesterday after receiving treatment for minor injuries, said she would never have left her burning home at Carnany Park if she had realised that her children, Richard (11), Mark (10) and Jason (9), were trapped inside. "I was wakened by the children screaming. I got up and there was smoke everywhere. I couldn't see a thing. I ran to their room, but when I got there they weren't in their beds".
"I knew I had to get out myself. I ran to a window and neighbours shouted at me to jump. I would never have left the house without my children, but I thought they had got out another way. They must have run past me in the darkness. I'll never know what happened. I don't know whether I can pick up the pieces. I don't have many pieces left in my life."
Her eldest son, Lee, who was staying with his grandmother at the time of the tragedy, cried himself to sleep on Sunday after being told that his brothers were dead.
Ms Quinn's partner, Raymond Craig (31), who tried to rescue the children, was still receiving hospital treatment yesterday for minor injuries.
The children's grandmother, Mrs Irene Quinn, yesterday described the family's grief and said that they would not return to Ballymoney after the funeral. She said that the three boys would be buried in a Catholic graveyard eight miles away because her daughter could not bear to go back to the town.
Mourners will today follow the three small coffins as they leave their grandmother's home at Moneyleck Park in Rasharkin at 9.45 a.m. The children will be buried at St Mary's Cemetery in Rasharkin after 11 a.m. Mass at the Church of Our Lady and St Patrick in Ballymoney.
Mrs Irene Quinn, who fled the Carnany Estate days before the tragedy, said that her daughter had feared that the family would be targeted. However, unlike other Catholic families on the estate, she had not received any warning to get out.
"I left the estate a few days before, because I felt uneasy living there", Mrs Quinn said. "Chrissie never wants to go back. She got no warning or nothing. Some of her neighbours got warnings, but she didn't. I'm a Protestant, my daughter's a Catholic, we are a mixed family. We felt uneasy because circumstances on the estate weren't the same as when we moved into it."
The RUC is investigating threatening letters containing bullets which were sent to five Catholic families on Saturday, less than 24 hours before the Quinn boys were murdered. Two families moved out of the estate yesterday. One Catholic woman said that she would be leaving her home after what had happened. She added: "Five of us got a letter on Saturday morning with a bullet in it. It just said `UVF' on it and `Get Out, Get Out'. I have been here 17 years on this estate, but I am going. I am frightened to stay."
The Sinn Fein chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, yesterday appealed for an end to sectarian attacks on Catholic families and for Orangemen to call off their standoff at Drumcree. He said: "Catholic families living in isolated areas throughout this state or, as the Quinn family, alongside their Protestant friends and neighbours, are indeed living in fear due to increasing and continuing attacks and intimidation around the Drumcree siege. They have received threats, been attacked, sent bullets in the post and today some are moving their children and families out."
Mr McLaughlin said that the decision by Portadown Orangemen to remain at Drumcree, with the backing of the Grand Orange Lodge, had had a "direct bearing" on the attacks. He added: "This nightmare has to end before another family are burned to death. Those responsible for the siege must realise this and immediately call a halt to it."