‘The six have become the children of Ireland... they are symbols of our country’

More than two dozen family members of those who died and were injured in the Berkeley balcony collapse gathered at the site of the tragedy.

They stood in a semicircle around the makeshift shrine, just yards from where the balcony collapsed and flipped over, killing four immediately and two soon after in hospital.

Parents, brothers, sisters, and girlfriends had travelled to California from Ireland, to take back the bodies of their loved ones and to comfort the seven being treated in hospital.