Political and community leaders and the Families of the Disappeared will attend the funeral tomorrow of Mrs Jean McConville who was abducted and killed by the Provisional IRA.
One of her daughters, Mrs Helen McKendry, last night said she would go to the funeral. There had been doubts after a bitter family dispute over where the mother of 10 would be buried.
Mrs McConville's body arrived back in the North yesterday after it was released by the coroner's office in Dublin. Until the funeral, the remains will remain in the home of her son Michael in Crumlin, Co Antrim.
Just before the cortège crossed the Border yesterday, it stopped at Grange Cross, two miles from Shelling Hill beach, Co Louth, where the Belfast woman was forced to kneel and was then shot in the back of the head 31 years ago. Mrs McConville's remains were found by a passer-by on the beach in August.
A Garda car escorted the cortège until it reached the North. When it stopped, Supt Pat Magee laid a wreath of white lilies at the side of the coffin. He then shook hands with Michael McConville.
Gardaí who had been involved in the search for the body lined the side of the road. Requiem Mass will take place in St Paul's Church on the Falls Road.
The cortège will then make its way to Divis Street in Belfast from where Mrs McConville was abducted when she was 37-years-old. A minute's silence will be held there. She will be buried in Lisburn, Co Antrim.
Mrs McKendry, who was the most prominent campaigner for the IRA to reveal details of her mother's killing, wanted her to be buried in Milltown Cemetery in west Belfast. Other family members disagreed. Mrs McKendry alleges "sinister elements" influenced their decision.
She claims it is in the interests of the Sinn Féin and IRA leadership that her mother isn't buried in west Belfast. Other family members have denied her claims. Mrs McKendry said she had been "shut out" of the funeral arrangements and was being treated by her family as "just a member of the public".
"I've had no say in the hymns or even the flowers at the funeral. I'm not allowed to carry the coffin either. They wouldn't even allow my husband Séamus to accompany me into the morgue in Dublin. It was terrible. I was in bits in there, and the person I needed most wasn't allowed in with me. What has Séamus ever done to them? He didn't murder my mother. Someone who wasn't even her son campaigned, more than anybody else, for the return of her body."
The Catholic priest who has long campaigned for the return of the bodies of all "the disappeared" appealed to the family to unite for the funeral. Monsignor Denis Faul said: "Jean McConville's life summarises the Troubles.
"She was abducted in front of her screaming children. Her funeral is a very important step in achieving closure.
"The McConville family can give leadership to the community. They should be united, arm-in-arm, at her graveside. That is what Jean, looking down from heaven, will be hoping for."
The Government spokeswoman said last night that it would be represented at the funeral by a senior civil servant from the Northern Ireland office of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Mr Tom Lynch.