Rugby stars past and present were among thousands who joined the grieving family of Anthony Foley as his remains were brought to his hometown church.
Two hour-long queues formed at St Flannan's Church, Killaloe in Co Clare, as people waited patiently to pay their respects to the Munster and Ireland great.
Munster Rugby head coach Foley, 42, died suddenly in the team hotel in Paris at the weekend, just hours before his side were due to play Racing 92 in the European Champions Cup.
His widow Olive and two young sons Tony and Dan, both wearing Munster jerseys, were supported by his father Brendan, himself a former Ireland international, and other relatives in emotional scenes outside the church.
Foley's coffin, draped in a Munster flag, arrived just before 1pm to lie in repose throughout the afternoon and early evening prior to spending a final night in the family home ahead of Friday's funeral.
Current Ireland coach Joe Schmidt and captain Rory Best joined the throngs that descended on the small town on the River Shannon to say farewell.
Leinster, Ireland and Lions talisman Johnny Sexton also paid tribute along a number of his provincial teammates. Connacht coach Pat Lam also travelled.
Former Munster, Ireland and Lions star Keith Wood, a close friend of Foley, was among the first to queue outside the church on Thursday morning.
The family issued a statement to urge people to come to the church early, given the length of queues.
"The crowds attending today are as vast as we could have anticipated," it stated.
Foley died from a build-up of fluid on his lungs as a result of heart disease.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here