We just want her back safe, say friends
Amy told one friend on Christmas Day she hoped to come home to Dublin on St Stephen’s Day but she contacted another pal from her schooldays in Ireland on December 26 to say the trip was cancelled. She also told another friend via the internet on the morning of New Year’s Day — the day she went missing — she hoped to come home in mid-January.
“She said she would be online in the evening and we’d talk again then but I checked all that evening and she wasn’t there,” said Daniel Nugent, 16, a neighbour and close friend of Amy’s from her time living in the north Dublin suburb of Donaghmede.
“I checked the next day and there was a message from her mam saying she was missing and if I heard anything from Amy, to let her mam know. I couldn’t believe it. I’m still in shock.”
Daniel said the music-loving teen gave no hint of any crisis in her life when he was last in contact with her. “We just talked about normal things on New Year’s Day. She wanted to know what I did for new year.”
But the previous week, she had been upset about not getting back to Ireland. “She was annoyed because her mam had turned her down and said it was too early after the last time she was home.
“She was home in August and was hoping to come again for Hallowe’en and then it was to be Christmas, but the last time she said it would be mid-January. She was annoyed about that but that was normal because she loves it here. She doesn’t really like Spain,” he said.
Ironically, Amy quite enjoyed the attention she got when she was last home in August because of the fact that she was living in Spain.
“Everyone was real envious and asking what it was like,” said another close friend, Shauna Grehan, 16.
“We were always saying it’s not fair — Amy’s got the sun — and she did like that part of being in Spain but she was just homesick a lot of the time.
“She rang me on Christmas Day and I was asking her what she got off Santa — just joking like — and she said she didn’t have all her presents yet because they were here in Dublin at her dad’s but she was coming home on Stephen’s Day and she’d see me then.
“But then she left a message on Bebo for another friend of ours on Stephen’s Day and said she wasn’t getting home. When she went to Spain first, she said she thought she was going for a two-week holiday and didn’t know she was going to live there for good.” Shauna returned to school on Monday but couldn’t face going back on Tuesday. “I didn’t cry at all when I heard at first — I was in shock — but it was too hard with everyone in school asking about her. Once I started crying, I cried all day.”
Both friends said Amy’s dislike of school began before she ever left Ireland. “She wasn’t really interested in books. But she was very mature — more mature than me and I’m older than her,” said Shauna.
“With other friends, if you had a falling-out, it’d be really awkward but Amy would always want to talk through things and sort things out.”
Shauna said she didn’t believe Amy had any personal problems apart from tensions over her preference to live in Ireland. “I used to ask her did she not have a fella yet and she’d say no and I’d ask why not — because we’d always think the Spanish lads were lovely — and she said some of them were but some of them weren’t.”
“She was seeing someone for a while but it wasn’t very serious,” said Daniel. “She wouldn’t have run off with him or anything. I don’t think she would have run away at all for any reason. Not at 10 at night anyway and not without any belongings. She’s smarter than that.”
The teenagers were last night monitoring their friend’s Bebo site which has attracted many messages hoping for her safe return and urging her to get in touch.
“I’d say to her if she’s out there to just come home,” said Shauna.
“It doesn’t matter about all the fuss — people will forget about all that but they can’t forget about her. We just want her back safe — that’s all that counts.”
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