The Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that four Irish people were killed in Tuesday's atrocities in New York.
That number is expected to rise, as fears grow for a number of Irish citizens who were working in the vicinity and are still missing. The Department expects the eventual Irish toll to be in double figures.
It has been confirmed that a Dublin man was on one of the hijacked planes which crashed into the World Trade Centre. He has been named as Patrick Currivan, who was 53 years old and single.
He graduated from Trinity College in the early seventies and was a senior executive with the French stock exchange. His sister, Helen Currivan, said she was devastated at the loss of her brother.
Fears are growing that other Irish people, many of whom worked at the World Trade Centre, may have been unable to escape. 35-year-old Anne Marie McHugh, from Tuam, worked in an office on the 84th floor of WTC Tower 2. Her family believe she was last seen on Tuesday morning on the 40th floor as she tried to leave the building.
However, hope is fading for two men from Donegal. Bill Deane (35) was working on the 100th floor World Trade Centre for an Insurance Company, when the tower was struck by the first plane in the suicide attacks. Damien Meehan, from a well-known Donegal family, is also missing since the attacks. He was working on the 92nd floor.
The family of a Tipperary carpenter, who was working on the 96th floor of one of the towers on Tuesday, have confirmed that he is missing. 53-year-old Martin Coughlan from Cappawhite, Co Tipperary, rang his wife Catherine at 9.20 on Tuesday and said something terrible had happened and that he was trying to get out of the building. He hasn't been in contact with his family since then.
Thirty-five year old Kieran Gorman of Carrowcurragh, Lavagh, was working as a labourer for the Structuretone building company on one of the upper floors of one tower of the World Trade Centre in New York. Shortly after the attack on the first building, he phoned his wife Ann on his mobile phone and said "we're getting out".
His family has not heard from him since. Two other Irish people are known to have died in the attacks: Ruth McCourt, originally from Co Cork, and her daughter Juliana.
