Community pays tribute to Ballycotton victims at funeral service

The funeral is taking place of the two sisters killed by their father in east Cork earlier this week.

Toys and baptismal candles belonging to Ella and Zoe Butler were brought into the church for a "Mass of the Angels" in the fishing village of Ballycotton.

The white coffins of six-year-old Zoe and two-year-old Ella were brought to the Star of the Sea church in Ballycotton in the same hearse - and carried to the altar by her aunts and uncles.

Hundreds of people packed the church and areas around, as their distraught mother Una carried the girl's baptismal candles inside, while others brought a collection of toys for the offertary procession.

Amongst the congregation, around 70 of Zoe's classmates from Scoil Realt na Mara, who joined in the hymns, before the girls made the journey to their final resting place in Cloyne.

The funeral mass for the girl's father, John Butler, will be celebrated at Saint Coleman's Cathedral in Cobh tomorrow.