By Michelle Crean

It was an emotional morning - but one filled with sighs of relief and many tears - as 135 Ukrainian women and children learned that they are now allowed to stay in Killarney.

In a last ditch move with less than an hour before the bus was due to arrive to Hotel Killarney to take them 300kms across the country to Westport Co Mayo, Minister for Education Norma Foley announced that they could stay in Killarney. It came after the arrival of up to 190 male refugees to the hotel a number of days ago.

A large gathering took place outside the hotel which included local politicians, the media, other members of the Ukrainian community who are living in the Innisfallen Hotel in Fossa and a huge amount of local people who were all outraged that they were to be moved with less than 48 hours notice.

The main concern was for the welfare of the children who had already been traumatised by the abrupt move from their home in March due to the Russian-Ukraine war. The families had settled over the last seven months in town with many women getting jobs, making new friendships and settling the children in local primary and secondary schools.

Dina Kukushkina, who works in Reens Pharmacy, is one such parent and today she said that they are so happy to be staying.

"I am very happy to hear this news," Dina, who was in the car with their luggage when she heard the news, told the Killarney Advertiser.

"When we heard this information we are very very happy. I still can't believe it, it's incredible and unbelievable for us. We will continue our life.

"We didn't sleep [last night] because we didn't know what would be the result. We just collected our things and our children were crying until 2am. Today in the morning I saw women and they were upset too because of the children because again it's stress and adaptation and it's really hard."

The women and children for now will stay at Hotel Killarney but there's plans to move them to other locations locally in the coming days.

READ ALL THE REACTION IN THIS WEEK'S KILLARNEY ADVERTISER - OUT FRIDAY