Overjoyed family reunited with missing woman

A WOMAN whose identity remained a mystery to gardaí for six weeks is a mother-of-four from the North who does not recognise her children’s names.

Deirdre Murray's family travelled to Tipperary yesterday after hearing that their missing loved one was taken into psychiatric care at the start of July, suffering from amnesia.

Her two sisters travelled overnight from west Belfast to Clonmel and identified 36-year-old Deirdre yesterday morning. Her four children, aged 16, 13, 10 and nine will see their mother when she returns to the North shortly. They had last seen her two months ago.

Sister Martine said the family was overjoyed. "It's been so heartbreaking. We have spent weeks putting posters up in Belfast. I was living up in her house with the 16-year-old girl, sitting there just hoping she would walk through the door.

"We are just so happy she's alive because that was something we thought about that we would be burying her. Her children are now looking forward to seeing her but when we talked to her she didn't recognise the names. She didn't recognise us and does not know where she was up to when she walked in to the cafe."

Deirdre, who had been suffering from a psychiatric condition, was being treated in hospital in Belfast but disappeared when she was released for the weekend, her sister said.

The last time she was spotted was on June 20 in Belfast. Her family are trying to piece together what happened to her between then and July 7 when she walked into a cafe in Urlingford, Co Kilkenny.

"She told the owners that someone had sent her to the cafe for work. But the ones in the cafe, and I want to thank them, were concerned for her welfare and called the guards," said Martine. As Deirdre was taken to St Luke's in Clonmel, gardaí called the the PSNI in the North who had no-one fitting Deirdre's description on its missing list.

While the family made police in Belfast aware of her disappearance two months ago, she was not officially placed on the list until last Saturday after officers, on behalf of the family, found her welfare benefit cheques had not been cashed.

Public appeals for information were made in the North but she was only identified after gardaí made their first appeal for information about the mystery woman on Thursday evening.

Details about the woman who has two distinctive tattoos appeared on the RTÉ website and were seen by a journalist from the family's local paper, the Andersonstown News, who then contacted Martine.

"We got in contact with the garda and they gave us the website. We went in and saw the picture. It was her but it was not a good picture, not like her at all. Now, after being looked after in hospital she looks like a million dollars."

Inspector Bernard O'Neill, of Thurles station, said it was now a matter between Deirdre and her family. "From a garda point of view, she's not wanted for any criminal matters and we are just happy she was identified."