Fresh dig for remains for IRA victim
Columba McVeigh, aged 17 when he went missing from his Co Tyrone home, is thought to be buried in a Monaghan bog. An earlier dig failed to find the remains.
The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains confirmed last night that the dig will recommence at the same site. It will be a limited dig and last no more than four or five days, said commission secretary Eamonn Mulligan.
The McVeighs have been cautioned not to be overly optimistic of finding the remains, though the information, taken in tandem with details given by other sources, is strong enough to make a new dig worthwhile.
Columba McVeigh’s mother Vera, aged 78, said: “The gardaí are ringing me at 11am to tell me what the progress is. Please God they will find him. They are aiming to dig for a week or less. It is not vague directions. I am pleased that they might find Columba, but I am nearly past being anything. He is still dead, that is the bottom line. How good could that be?”
Mrs McVeigh’s son was abducted in November, 1975. The IRA did not reveal its involvement in his death until 1999 when it passed on information on the burial sites of nine people it had “disappeared”.
The new information, believed to be from an individual involved in the 1975 burial, complements details already passed on to gardaí. An excavation was carried out of around one-third of an acre of bogland at Bragan, near Emyvale, in Monaghan.
Members of the IRA are thought to have visited the site over a month ago, before the chance discovery of what is almost certainly the remains of Belfast mother-of-10 Jean McConville, abducted, shot in the head and left in a shallow grave at Shelling Beach on the Cooley Peninsula. DNA tests are being carried out to confirm that the body is that of Mrs McConville.
The IRA, through intermediaries, then passed the information on to the Department of Justice.
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