Hi °C | Lo °C Shannon Gallagher and her “wee sister” Erin were like “two peas in a pod”.
Both had moved to Ireland with their mother Lorraine from Scotland for a better life in the county of their great-grandparents.
Just seven weeks ago the Gallagher family's life was turned upside down when Erin, a few days short of her 14th birthday, took her own life.
It emerged she had been the subject of relentless bullying on the internet.
There were heartbreaking scenes of grief as 15-year-old Shannon, clutching her mother, walked behind Erin's coffin at the funeral on Halloween day.
Tomorrow, at the same Church of St Mary Immaculate in Stranorlar, Co Donegal, friends and family will gather for another heartbreaking farewell — this time to Shannon.
After Erin's death Shannon poured her heart out in a series of Facebook posts to both her sister and her mother.
“I love you mum. You're the most perfect ever brought to this earth,” wrote Shannon to her mother. “Erin loved you so much. You were her main woman. You tried everything in your power to stop this. For her (Erin's) sake let's stay strong, she wouldn't want to see us upset.”
Friends said Shannon would write every day to Erin as she struggled to cope with the grief of her death. And she wrote of her devastation at her sister's death.
“Baby girl,” she wrote a few days after Erin's death, “I can't believe this. I miss you so much.“
“Erin and Shannon were like two peas in a pod,” said one family friend.
Tomorrow, Shannon will be laid to rest alongside her sister in Castlefin cemetery.
