A mother’s anguish

Nine days after Robert Holohan went missing, his family face the horror of being told he will not be coming home, writes Dan Buckley.

FROM the very start, the signs were ominous: as dusk begins to fall on a quiet country road near Midleton, Co Cork, a neighbour finds a spanking new BMX bike lying abandoned against a ditch.

It doesn't take her long to recognise it as belonging to Robert Holohan, a bright and popular 11-year-old boy from the locality. It is a Christmas present from his parents, Mark and Majella; his pride and joy.

Robert left his home at Ballyedmond off the Fermoy Road in Midleton at 2.30pm on Tuesday, January 4, to call to friends and was contacted later that afternoon on his mobile phone by his mother.

But when he failed to return home on Tuesday evening, his father raised the alarm at 5.15pm after Robert's bike was found lying against the hedge on the roadway at Carrigoghna. Neighbours began to search for him and the gardaí were alerted later that evening.

At first his parents clung to the hope that Robert might have wandered off somewhere and got into difficulties. The area around his home is open, hilly countryside with rough terrain. It was not beyond the bounds of possibility that Robert could have fallen and injured himself.

But the Holohans knew in their` hearts that this was a highly unlikely scenario. They also knew he would not have thrown his treasured bike into a ditch.

Days before, he had refused to leave it outside a local chip-shop in case it got scratched. He would not have abandoned it so readily.

As dawn broke the following day, more local people join the search, along with gardaí, Red Cross personnel, civil defence units and a coastguard helicopter.

When Garda Supt Liam Hayes appealed for help with the search, little did he realise his request would be heard not alone in East Cork but as far away as Dublin and Mayo.

From early in the morning volunteers flocked to the search headquarters at East Cork Golf Club, north of Midleton, leading to traffic congestion on over two miles of country roads.

Most were local, but not all. Denis Cronin had just finished a night shift as a prison officer at Cork Prison when he joined other anglers from around the county who know Robert's father, Mark.

"A few of us from Macroom Anglers and a few of the Kanturk lads have come down we all know Robert's father, Mark, from the fishing so we wanted to help out. We spent the morning searching down from the weighbridge on the Carrigtwohill Road to the sea."

Soup, sandwiches, sausages, chips and bottles of water donated by the people and businesses of Midleton were carried to the golf club as hungry searchers returned to base before starting off again.

It was ex-Army Ranger Gene O'Sullivan, from Castlemartyr, who best summed up the outpouring of sympathy for the family.

"I've an 11-year-old girl," he said. "And she once went missing on me for 20 minutes in town and everything went through my head. I know exactly what those people are going through. That's why I'm here to do what I can to help. It's as simple as that."

Former Cork hurlers Kevin Hennessy from Midleton and Mark Landers from Killeagh joined the search with Minister of State Michael Ahern.

Through their anguish, Mark and Majella drew comfort from the fact that complete strangers, some of whom had travelled almost 200 miles, had come to the Midleton area to search for their missing boy. Still, despite the frantic efforts, there was no sign of Robert by nightfall and the search was postponed until the following morning.

On Thursday afternoon, Sgt Seán Leahy led a group of more than 80 volunteers out on their second search of the day for Robert, concentrating this time on an area south of Leamlara village, including parts of the Leamlara river. The group was transported in a convoy of police vans, ambulances and four-wheel drives, which snaked its way along main roads and boreens to the search area.

Despite widening the search net there was still no sign of Robert. His parents grew increasingly frantic.

On Friday, gardaí began shifting the focus of their inquiry from a search to a criminal investigation amid growing fears that the boy may have been abducted.

"We have no evidence that there was an abduction but it's obviously a possibility that we have to consider we can't rule it out particularly after spending three days of intensive searching without finding any trace of Robert," said Supt Hayes.

The shift in focus was evident when six officers, including a detective superintendent from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, travelled to Midleton to assist.

At the same time gardaí began speaking to a number of registered sex offenders in the East Cork area to eliminate them from their inquiries. They also released a photograph of a phone similar to Robert's mobile.

The search operation saw around 800 volunteers from East Cork and farther afield join with around 200 gardaí and 90 soldiers in driving rain and howling winds to search areas north, south and east of Midleton town.

Some 90 troops from Cork, Kilkenny and Limerick carried out sweeps of some of the more inhospitable terrain and vegetation north of Midleton.

Members of the Red Cross, RNLI and the coastguard also joined in the search operation.

Over the weekend it became increasingly clear that Robert had been abducted..

As prayers for Robert were said at Masses and church services on Sunday, his parents issued a new television appeal for help: "Don't give up please," said his mother, Majella.

A special service was held in the Holy Rosary Church in Midleton. "Do not give up hope," Canon Bertie Troy told churchgoers. But, as the days went on, hope was vanishing.

The following day Mark and Majella made a direct appeal to anyone who might have abducted their son.

"There's a big difference between being at a boy and murder people can be forgiven if he's brought back. I don't really care what it takes we just want Robert back here with us now," said his mother.

By now they were convinced Robert had been kidnapped. "If somebody has Robert and I know now that this person is after doing a bad thing, but I'd say to them: 'Don't do a worse thing,' I'd just appeal to them to let him go," pleaded her husband.

The following day, exactly a week after his disappearance, a local 12-year-old boy, picked because he is the same height as 11-year-old Robert and has the same blond hair, rode a silver BMX bike just like Robert's on the roads of Ballyedmond.

Gardaí hoped it would help jog memories and assist in tracking Robert's movements.

Clad in the same Nike top with orange lettering and the Midleton GAA tracksuit bottoms with two white stripes and Nike runners, the young boy must have been a difficult sight for Robert's parents at their home.

Out on to the road, Robert's lookalike rode the gleaming silver bike, first to his next door neighbours, the O'Donoghues, where Robert called but left after discovering his friends weren't there, and then into Hartes, where he rang the doorbell but got no answer.

After that he rode down to Tullys, where Robert had also called looking for friends only to discover that they were out, too. He spoke to Liam Tully who watched him cycle back out on to the road, the last confirmed sighting.

"We love him very, very much all we want is Robert back safe at home. That's the only thought we're holding on to now," said his father as the reconstruction was enacted.

Then, shortly after 3pm yesterday came the shocking news that a body had been found near a boreen leading to Inch Strand, only a few miles from Robert's home. Volunteers had made the discovery and raised the alarm immediately. Gardaí cordoned off the area in order to verify whether it was indeed the body of Robert.

Today, a post mortem may confirm our worst fears.