Search for remains of IRA victim resume at bog site
As local gardaí moved in yesterday morning, a mechanical digger was brought to the remote site on the side of a mountain near Emyvale close to the border.
It is hoped the excavation of the site, expected to last four or five days, will lead to the discovery of the remains of 17-year-old Tyrone teenager Columba McVeigh.
He disappeared in November, 1975, but his family had no idea whether he was alive or dead until 1999 when the IRA released information on the graves of nine of the so-called ‘disappeared’, individuals the organisation murdered and secretly buried.
Columba’s 78-year-old mother, Vera, who wants to give her son a Christian burial before her own death, said yesterday she hopes God is with gardaí searching for the body.
The site, a 40 by 25 metre patch of bog adjacent to where two separate digs took place in 1999 and 2000, is part of a bog on the Bragan mountain. It is remote and can only be accessed by a dirt road.
John Wilson, chairman of the Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains, has cautioned against being over-optimistic about finding the body. The new information came from a former IRA member believed to have been present when the body was buried.
IRA personnel visited the site again and contacted the Department of Justice about a month ago. Last week, the commission was informed and it was decided the information, in tandem with what was already known, was strong enough to order the fresh dig.
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