The people of Callan gathered "laden with grief" yesterday at the funeral of two-year-old Robyn Leahy, who was stabbed by her father last Sunday.
Her death, said parish priest, Father William Dalton, had left a void in the midst of everyone who knew her. "She has taken part of us with her to the grave," he said.
Robyn's mother, Lorraine, who was discharged from hospital on Wednesday, sat at the head of the congregation as Father Dalton recalled a "little child who was innocence personified".
Ms Leahy suffered head injuries in the incident on Sunday, in which Robyn's father, Mr George McGloin, stabbed himself to death after killing his daughter at the Leahys' home in Callan, Co Kilkenny.
Father Dalton said the death of a loved one was always traumatic, particularly when it was a child. "We gather laden with grief. We don't know what to say or think. People say grief is something that never heals. It is probably true.
"Somebody who has been part of us, part of our own flesh and blood, has been taken abruptly from us," he said.
But Lorraine had memories no-one could take away, Robyn's "little angelic smile, her chatter and those numerous little trips to the shops for sweets". We should remember, he said, that Robyn's father's family were also hurting, and he asked for prayers for them as well as the Leahys.
We often wonder, he said, how a loving God could allow things such as Robyn's death to happen. "Nobody knows. The more we search for answers at a rational level the less likely we are to find them, because they simply do not exist at that level".
At the beginning of the funeral Mass at the Church of the Assumption, Father Dalton said he had received a phone call from the President, Mrs McAleese, expressing her deep shock at what had happened. She had sent her sympathy to the Leahy family and people of Callan, he said.
The other chief mourners were Lorraine Leahy's parents, Mort and Joan, her sisters Christine and Frances, her brother David, and her grandmother, Mrs Josie Leahy.
From Callan, Robyn's remains were taken to the crematorium at Newlands in Dublin.
