Daughter tells of pain over missing mother

THE daughter of a woman who went missing from a Dublin hospital more than 31 years ago said at the conclusion of an inquest that the pain of her mother’s disappearance is as great today as it was then.

Alice Clifford, aged 57, Cremona Road, Ballyfermot, went missing from St Loman’s Hospital in west Dublin on November 28, 1979.

No trace of the mother of seven, who had dementia, was ever found.

Two recent excavations were carried out in the hospital grounds as part of a Garda investigation, after the Dublin County coroner received information that a trench was filled in the morning after Mrs Clifford went missing.

The digs, which took place in October 2010 and earlier this month, revealed nothing of any evidential nature, Dublin County Coroner’s Court heard yesterday.

A jury concluded that Mrs Clifford is dead and returned an open verdict under the direction of coroner Dr Kieran Geraghty, who recorded the cause of death as undetermined.

The coroner opened an inquest in August at the request of Mrs Clifford’s family and with the permission of the Minister for Justice.

Speaking outside the court her daughter, Patricia O’Reilly said: “We will never have closure. We realise our case is 31 years old, but to us she is still our mother. There is a hole there,” said Mrs O’Reilly.

“Today is a sad day for me because I know the authorities are not going to look again,” she said.

“Why didn’t the issue of the trenches come to light when she went missing? This should have been all checked out at the time… when memories were fresher.”

“If we had got the help then that we got now, we believe we would have found her.”

Mrs Clifford was sectioned into St Loman’s Hospital in November 1979 for two weeks’ respite.