A DOLL held closely by her mother, and a colourful sunflower-shaped toy in the hands of her father, symbolised the innocent joy a little girl brought to people’s lives.

“HER smile lit up a room. She was love personified. She radiated love in all directions. She made us better people.”

CHILDREN’S prayers to a classmate who died tragically spoke more eloquently than anybody else, a priest said yesterday at the funeral Mass of little Paige Corcoran in Nenagh.

THE bells of the nearby St Francis’s Church tolled solemnly as midday approached and then silence descended.

THE tiny white coffins containing the remains of four-year-old Michaela Grace and her three year-old sister, Abbi, will be placed side by side in the same grave at around noon today in a cemetery a mile from their home.

A TWO-YEAR-OLD child died because her heart operation was cancelled and the Minister for Health, Micheál Martin, calls for a report.