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Farm dig continues after suspected IRA victims' bodies found Farm dig continues after suspected IRA victims' bodies found
(about 1 hour later)
Police are continuing to search a reclaimed bog in Ireland after two bodies were found at a site where victims of the IRA are believed to have been secretly buried. Investigators who discovered two bodies at a bog in the Irish Republic believed to be where the IRA secretly buried some of its victims in the 1970s are continuing to search for a possible third set of remains.
Specialist search teams charged with finding the remains of the IRA victims who became known as the disappeared were initially looking only for the body of Joe Lynskey, a former Catholic monk-turned IRA man, who the Republican group murdered in the early 1970s.
Related: Disappeared but not forgotten: the grim secrets the IRA could not buryRelated: Disappeared but not forgotten: the grim secrets the IRA could not bury
As part of a search for the remains of the former monk Joe Lynskey, a dig on the farmland in Coghalstown, County Meath, unearthed two bodies next to each other on Thursday, the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) said. But on Friday, senior investigator Jon Hill from the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains (ICLVR) said there could be more remains at the site in County Meath.
Police believe three victims – thought to be among those killed by the IRA who became known as the disappeared – were buried at the site. “We were searching for the remains of Joe Lynskey, only expecting to find the remains of one person,” he told BBC Radio Ulster’s Good Morning Ulster programme. “As the archaeologists were uncovering the remains they had found, it became clear that there was more than one where we were searching.”
Lynskey’s family had been notified of the discovery and his niece, Maria, arrived at the field late on Thursday night where forensic teams had been excavating based on specific intelligence. Hill said he thought the two bodies were probably buried together.
When a second body was found as preparations were made to take the first set of remains out of the ground, police began to suspect the discovery may have been that of IRA victims Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee. The other bodies are likely to be of Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee, both IRA members who were abducted, murdered and buried secretly by the organisation in 1972. They were accused of being recruited as British agents by an army undercover unit carrying out covert attacks in west Belfast at the start of the Troubles.
The pair were abducted and murdered by the terrorist group from Belfast in October 1972 and were buried in the same area. Hill stressed that it would be some weeks before DNA could give more clarity to the identity of the bodies.
Previous digs have taken place on the farm in Coghalstown in the search for their bodies, including in a field next to where Thursday’s discovery was made. Maria Lynskey, Joe Lynskey’s neice, who has been to the site of the digging and searches at the Coghalstown bog said on Thursday that she “thought the whole day that it was her uncle” who had been found, but has come to terms with indications that now may not be the case.The three men were part of a group of 17 people bar one that the IRA accused of being informers during the Troubles. They were abducted, killed and buried in secret locations across Ireland. The IRA only admitted to their murders decades after they had been disappeared.
Further work will now take place on-site before DNA tests are used to identify the bodies. The most notorious case was mother of 10 Jean McConville, a widow who was kidnapped, taken in a car from west Belfast across the border to the Irish Republic, shot dead and buried at a beach in County Louth. It was also the most controversial case because the IRA commander and hunger striker Brendan Hughes claimed Gerry Adams, now the Sinn Féin president, had given the order for the woman to be killed and buried in secret to avoid political embarrassment for the republican movement. Adams has alwasy denied any connection to the McConville murder or even being in the IRA.
“We have always said that we think three bodies are in that area and until there is further identification we just don’t know,” a spokesman for the ICVLR said. This year was the first dig for Lynskey’s remains. The list of 17 disappeared includes Gareth O’Connor who was murdered in 2003 and had his body recovered in June 2005 at Victoria Quay, Newry Canal, County Louth.
Lynskey, a former Cistercian monk from Beechmount in west Belfast,
was abducted and murdered by the IRA in August 1972 but the terrorist group only admitted to being behind his disappearance in 2010.
Wright, an asphalt layer also from Belfast, had been in the IRA and was murdered by his former colleagues, who accused him of being a British army agent and a member of its military reaction force – an undercover unit.
Wright was 25 and married when he went missing in October 1972.
McKee, again from Belfast and in the IRA, was murdered in the same year because of the same suspicions the IRA had of Wright. McKee was interrogated and murdered by the terrorist group.
Maria Lynskey said on Thursday: “We would like to thank the [ICLVR] and those who have engaged with the commission in the search for Joe. Our thoughts are with the other families whose loved ones remain disappeared.”
This year was the first dig for Lynskey’s remains. The three men were among 17 people abducted, killed and clandestinely dumped or buried by republicans. The list includes Gareth O’Connor who was murdered in 2003 and had his body recovered in June 2005 at Victoria Quay, Newry Canal, County Louth.
The ICLVR has investigated 16 of the abductions and murders. The most recent confirmed discovery was that of Brendan Megraw, whose remains were found in Oristown bog, also in County Meath, in October.The ICLVR has investigated 16 of the abductions and murders. The most recent confirmed discovery was that of Brendan Megraw, whose remains were found in Oristown bog, also in County Meath, in October.