On Friday evening Catherine Doyle made her way down a quiet tree-lined boreen in Carane, Co Roscommon, to phone her mother in Dublin from a local shop. Her brother, Richard, had died recently and she was anxious to see how her mother was coping. Reassured by the call, she went off "happy as the flowers of May", according to the shopkeeper. Her sister, Sarah Jane, was arriving on the evening train, together with her sister's partner, Mr Mark Nash, their six-month-old infant son and a young girl, Ella, Mr Nash's daughter from a previous relationship.
According to the shopkeeper, Mrs Doyle was looking forward to the evening. "She was in terrific form, we had a chat and so forth," he told The Irish Times. Her mother was delighted to get the call.
Less than five hours later, Catherine Doyle was found stabbed to death in the kitchen of the two-storey traditional farmhouse she had moved to with her family four years ago.
The Doyles had come from Dublin to the area under the Rural Resettlement Scheme.
Carane is a beautiful and tranquil spot, with about 60 people living in 25 houses along the boreen. There are two shops on the nearby main road and the local church two miles away in Ballintubber. That tranquillity was shattered on Saturday night when Catherine and her husband, Carl, were found dead in the house. Her sister, Sarah Jane, was taken to hospital with head injuries. She had gone to the nearby home of the Heskin family, where the alarm was raised.
On Saturday afternoon the Heskin family huddled around a television set in their home as they tried to come to grips with the tragedy. Mr Sean Heskin was too shocked to talk to The Irish Times. "It's tragic. Thank you very very much. God bless," he said.
Numbed by the deaths, locals remembered the couple and their four children, Jessie (7), Frank (5), Heather (3) and Hollie (1), as people who had integrated well with the local community and helped keep the local school alive.
The family had seemed very happy with the move from the hustle and bustle of Dublin to their rural retreat. Carl worked at the Avonmore meat factory in Ballyhaunis and got up early every morning to walk to the main road, where he would get a lift to work.
The children played safely on the quiet boreen or in neighbouring fields, a far cry from the worry and stress of city streets.
On Saturday, however, as Garda forensic experts examined the front garden, a red and yellow toy truck lay abandoned in the rain. The children had been taken into the care of the Western Health Board. Painted in black on the front-gate pillar, the house's name bore mute witness to a lost innocence. It read Cnoc na Si Oige, the hill of the fairies.
A neighbour of the Doyles, Mr Martin Conboy, said he was "shocked and amazed" at the deaths. "This area has been so quiet. Our family came here in 1936 and there was never anything like this here. When we heard it on Saturday morning it was hard to believe. It is just starting to sink in now."
The parish priest of Ballintubbber, Father Seamus Cox, said the whole area was deeply shocked at the deaths. He described the Doyles as "a warm and friendly couple" and said he had visited them several times.
A garda, who comes from the area but now works in Dublin, said locals were "horrified and frightened" by what had happened. In living memory gardai had not had to deal with "even the smallest little assault" in the area, he said.
The Doyle family had settled in well, the garda added. "They kept to themselves very much . . . They were very well got in the area and they never caused any trouble."
Chris Dooley writes: Neighbours in the quiet Dublin estates where Carl and Catherine Doyle lived in the city before moving to the country yesterday described their shock at the deaths.
"It didn't register with me when I read it in the papers that it was someone just down the road," said Mr Paddy Coen, a near neighbour of Carl Doyle's family on Donaghmede Road in the north of the city. "Then one of the neighbours called at the door and told us who it was. All the neighbours are shocked. They're a very popular family and all the families in the area rally round and help each other out," he said.
Like most families on the road, the Doyles moved in when the estate of terraced houses, which faces the back of Donaghmede Shopping Centre, was built in 1970. Carl's parents, Joe and Lily Doyle, are particularly well known because of Joe's involvement in the local residents' association and various community projects.
In the west Dublin estate where Catherine Doyle lived with her family before moving to Roscommon, neighbours were reluctant to speak. But they described Catherine and her sister Sarah Jane, who was injured in the weekend incident, as popular, outgoing women.