PRAYERS & THEN HORROR FOR GRAN

Vanessa's mum home from Knock to be told daughter & grandchildren had died | Priest says 'the pain is just palpable' in community as GAA club hails ex-player.

- MICHAEL O'TOOLE

THE elderly mother of the vet murdered with her children returned home from a pilgrimage only to be told they had been killed, it has emerged.

And, as the small community of Barefield comes to terms with the murder in Fermanagh of Vanessa Whyte and her children James and Sara, it has also emerged that she was planning to bring them to the Clare village in less than a fortnight.

"She was intending to bring the children down for the (August 4) bank holiday," a local in the village, which is around 8km from Ennis, told this newspaper yesterday -24 hours after the horror killings in Maguiresbridge, Co Fermanagh.

They added: "Everyone in the community is just in shock." Ms Whyte, 45, retained strong links to the Co Clare village and locals were devastated at the suspected murder and attempted suicide that left her, James, 14, and Sara, 13, dead in their own home on Wednesday.

And Barefield parish priest Fr Tom Fitzpatrick yesterday told us that Vanessa's mother Mary had been on a pilgrimage to Knock Shrine in Co Mayo when the shocking killings happened on Wednesday.

The priest said Mrs Whyte, a widow and mother of six adult children including Vanessa, had the news broken to her by her son Stephen when she arrived home on Wednesday evening.

Fr Fitzpatrick, who spoke to a devastated Mrs Whyte yesterday, told us: "She told me she was in Knock yesterday.

PILLAR

"I think it was a personal pilgrimage, she may have been with one or two, but it was not a big pilgrimage.

"She did her prayers there, did her devotions there, came home last night just to be Ama told this news by her son.

"Stephen told her when she came home.