GARDAÍ are expected to make an arrest in the coming days on foot of their investigations into the discovery of the bodies of a young mother and her two daughters in a house fire in Kilkenny on Christmas morning.

“THREE of the brightest lights in our family went out on Christmas morning,” said the brother of Sharon Whelan yesterday, the woman who was found dead with her two daughters after a house fire.

Hundreds of mourners today attended the funeral of a mother and her two daughters who were killed in a Christmas Day house fire.

SEVEN days after they perished in the house they shared in an isolated part of Co Kilkenny, Sharon Whelan and her two daughters will be buried today in the same grave.

GARDAÍ will this morning begin a fifth day of forensic examination of the farmhouse where a fire claimed the lives of a young mother and her two children on Christmas morning.

Detectives and fire authorities were keeping an open mind today on the cause of a Christmas Day house fire which claimed the lives of a mother and her two daughters.

IT IS a haunting image of two young sisters, full of life and excitement, enjoying a visit to Santa just days before they perished in a Christmas morning house fire.

A close-knit rural community was today coming to terms with the tragic deaths of a mother and her two young children in a Christmas Day house fire.