A family were left "devastated" after arriving at their parents' grave in west Dublin over the weekend to find it had been vandalised.
The family had spent hundreds of euro improving the grave at Esker Cemetery in Lucan by installing black glass stones around it in September.
But two of the deceased couples' daughters were horrified when they visited the plot to find most of the stones removed and a vase with plants had been moved.
One of the women, Bernadette, told 98FM's Dublin Talks she arrived at the grave with her sister on Saturday.
She said: "I went up with my other sister and her husband and when we pulled up beside the grave we were just totally devastated.
"All the stones had been taken off it. There was about a bucketful probably left at the top but whoever had taken them had pulled the membrane from underneath and obviously gathered them to take them.
"It was devastating. Totally devastating for the family."
The heart-broken woman told host Adrian Kennedy that seeing the damage was like "grief all over again".
"We had brought beautiful flowers up and I barely remember putting them on the grave we were so upset."
Some listeners texted in to suggest it may have been birds that took the stones but Bernadette was not convinced by this explanation.
She said: "A few people were saying that to us but the magpies or the crows didn't move the big pot that I could hardly lift myself down to the bottom of the grave."
The distraught family were forced to shell out more money for bags of stones to repair the damage to the plot.
Bernadette explained: "We couldn't have left it the way it was too upsetting for us all."
