In thin trading on the National Day of Mourning Irish shares were marked down in line with falls on European bourses. The Irish Stock Exchange closed all its operations except for services required by international investors to transact essential business in Irish stocks. Brokers brought in small numbers of staff to operate dealing desks.

With the German market down more than 5 per cent in afternoon trading and other European markets down more than 4 per cent, dealers said most Irish shares were offered on nervousness ahead of the planned opening on Monday of trading on Wall Street. Dealers said they expected a fall of 5 to 10 per cent on Wall Street on Monday following the US markets unprecedented four day closure.

But they added that the SEC was expected to relax some rules to support the markets and the Fed was expected to move on interest rates to ensure recession is avoided.

Shares to trade in Dublin included the financials, Ryanair, CRH, and Elan. Against the trend AIB ended five cents ahead at €11. Bank of Ireland was down25 cents at €9.15 while Anglo lost six cents to €3.64. Weakness in the airline sector all over Europe was reflected in Ryanair which fell 53 cents or 6.5 per cent to €7.60. In London BA was down more than 16 per cent. Elan dropped €1.80 to close at €57.20 and CRH lost 56 cents to close at €16.43. Dealers described trading volumes as very light.

The National Day of Mourning was marked by a period of silence at 11 a.m. at the Irish-based operations of international banks and financial services companies which operated yesterday and have been working around the clock in recent days to provide processing and emergency back-up facilities to their own banking groups and other institutions hit by fall-out from Tuesday's terrorist attacks.