‘A single person’ could unlock secret to location of Disappeared remains
As forensic archaeologists surveyed remote bogland in Oristown, near Kells in Co Meath, in renewed efforts to find the remains of newly-wed Brendan Megraw, who vanished in April 1978, investigators said local knowledge could be key.
The 23-year-old from west Belfast and 16 other people were abducted, killed and clandestinely buried by republicans during the Troubles and became known as the Disappeared.
It is believed Mr Megraw’s remains were buried in a bog in Oristown.
Investigators from the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains — set up by the British and Irish governments to liaise with former paramilitaries to find the Disappeared — believe at least one person in the remote part of the county may have vital information on several cases.
Separate searches have also taken place on bogland a few miles from the Oristown site, near Wilkinstown, for Kevin McKee and Seamus Wright, both of whom were taken by the IRA in October 1972.
It is also suspected Joseph Lynskey, a former Cistercian monk taken from the Beechmount area of west Belfast in the summer of 1972, was also buried somewhere in the region.
Standing on the edge of the bog as experts began radar surveys, Jon Hill, the senior investigator with the commission, reached out to local people with information on the Disappeared.
“There are people in this area, in this community, who could help,” he said.
About 2.5 hectares of bog will be recorded using specialist radar technology over the next eight days. It will take at least another two weeks for the data to be thoroughly analysed.
A series of strips have been marked out on two blocks of the bog to define the geophysical search area.
Rows of neatly-stacked recently cut turf marked the outer limits of one search area and tonnes of peat lying deeper into the bog formed a man-made barrier for the search site.
At least five other blocks in the active bog have been examined in three previous searches involving local gardaí and the commission. The last was in 2010.
The latest sites are deeper in from the road and include areas which were cleared in years past of heather, bog birch and other plant life to allow machines on the land to strip turf for fuel.
Mr Megraw’s brother Kieran acknowledged that it would be a “difficult day” for the family.
Mr Megraw, from Twinbrook, was looking forward to the birth of his first child and was due to start a new job on a ship when he went missing. The IRA claimed he had confessed to being a British provocateur and Military Reaction Force undercover agent in 1978.
The remains of 10 of the Disappeared have been recovered.
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