Man’s fears for wife missing in Melbourne

That’s the heart-felt plea from Tom Meagher, whose wife Jill has been missing in Australia since Friday.

A major search effort took place all weekend for a 29-year-old Co Louth woman.

Mr Meagher has praised the support he has received since Ms Meagher disappeared after going for drinks with work colleagues in Melbourne in the early hours of Saturday morning, local time.

“There’s a massive Facebook campaign and a lot of people are getting on board,” he said. “There’s a lot of really decent support. I just wish I knew where she was, or that she’s safe.”

Police have said they are concerned for Ms Meagher’s safety, as it is out of character for her to go missing.

“We’d just like to get to the bottom of it and find out what’s happened to her,” said Det Sgt Steve Bull.

Posters have been put up around Melbourne, including Brunswick, where Ms Meagher was last seen. The search has been supported by a massive social media campaign, with the Facebook page ‘Help us find Jill Meagher’, started on Saturday, being liked by 11,500 people by yesterday evening, and viewed by hundreds of people every hour.

Twitter has also been used to spread word of the search, with the words “Jill”, “Meagher”, “Brunswick and “vanished” among the most-used in Australian tweets on Saturday.

Well-known presenters on ABC Radio, where Ms Meagher works in management, posted and retweeted links to news stories about her disappearance.

Social media sites were also filled with messages of support and good wishes for her safety from friends and family in Australia and Ireland, including people in Mr Meagher’s home town of Cabinteely in Dublin.

He and Ms Meagher, a UCD graduate from Drogheda, were married in 2008, and the couple had been home earlier this month to visit family and friends. Ms Meagher’s brother, Michael McKeon, crossed Australia from his home in Perth, where their parents, George and Edith, also live to join the search.

Ms Meagher’s uncle, Michael McKeon, from Drogheda said Gillian, as she is known to her Irish family, had worked in RTÉ before the couple emigrated.

“It seems that Gillian walked home at the wrong time,” said Mr McKeon. “She was just a five-minute walk from home.

“It is worrying, and the fact that we are here in Ireland and not there — you just feel you cannot do anymore to help. We just hope that she is found and is okay.

“Gillian is very outgoing and bubbly and so well liked. She’s a very sociable person and she was here with us just a few weeks ago.”

* www.facebook.com/HelpUsFindJillMeagher