A CO Down student told her father "I love you" in her last phone call to him hours before she died in a fire in her flat.
Kilcoo priest Canon Seán Rogan, said that 19-year-old Ellen Finnegan had been "happy and full of joy" after returning home to her flat in Castlewellan after a night socialising.
"Her father Bartley was due to go on a skiing holiday the morning that she died. She did ring him before she went to bed, having been out socialising.
"She was happy and full of joy and wanted to wish him a good holiday and tell him she loved him. The last words that he heard her say to him were "I love you" and that might be some source of consolation to him."
An A-level pupil at Assumption Grammar School in Ballynahinch, Ellen died in the blaze in a flat above her father's butcher's shop in the early hours of Saturday - on the third anniversary of the death of her mother Nicola from cancer.
Canon Rogan will be the main celebrant at Miss Finnegan's funeral Mass, which will be held in St Malachy's Church in Castlewellan at noon today, before burial in the family plot in Aughlisnafin.
He said: "The community is traumatised and the grief is exacerbated by the fact that three years ago to the day Ellen's mother Nicola died. The hearts of everyone in the parish is going out to them.
"She was a very vibrant young lady and loved sport. She played camogie and basketball and was a keen skier."
Castlewellan GAC closed its clubrooms on Saturday evening as a mark of respect to their former player.
Paramedics attempted in vain to revive Miss Finnegan, who also worked as a waitress at the Percy French restaurant in Newcastle, after the blaze broke out in a bedroom in her home in Lower Square in Castlewellan at around 4am.
The cause of the blaze is still not known.
More than 20 firefighters were involved in the battle to bring the fire under control.
About 200 pupils, friends and staff gathered at Assumption Grammar School on Sunday for a prayer service. Classmates broke down as warm tributes were paid to the student, who recently received an offer to study at university in Liverpool.
Ellen's devastated friends gathered over the weekend to lay flowers and cards at the scene of the fire.
One tribute read: "To my beautiful best friend. It's been a pleasure."
Another said: "Rest in peace you beautiful, beautiful angel."
Marcelle Orsi, head of the senior school in Assumption, said: "Ellen was quite simply a very warm, loving, generous student. With her personality she would have been great in PR or marketing."
