‘Significant progress’ in missing teen Ciara Breen case

Forensic investigators are scouring bog land in Dundalk as part of an 18-year-old search for a missing teenage girl.

Ciara Breen, 17, vanished from her Bachelor’s Walk home in the Co Louth town, where she lived with her mother Bernadette, in the early hours of February 13, 1997.

It is believed she left the house to meet someone after they went to bed that night and left a window open to climb back in. But she was never again seen.

Last year, her mother made a fresh appeal for information on the whereabouts of her only child.

Around the same time, two anonymous letters were passed to investigating gardaí regarding the disappearance.

Yesterday, in a special media briefing Superintendent Gerard Curley, from Dundalk Garda Station, said fresh information since the appeals has resulted in a number of lines of inquiry.

“One line of inquiry is a search in an area known as Balmer’s Bog, which is a marshland area just off the Ardee Road in Dundalk,” he added.

“The search is being carried out by the Dundalk search team, assisted by the Garda sub aqua unit and also members from the Technical Bureau.

“They are equipped with specialist equipment to search for missing persons.”

The search of the 16-acre site, the most extensive undertaken as part of the investigation into the teenager’s disappearance, is expected to take weeks.

However, the detective leading the investigation feels this latest development represents significant progress.

“We have made very significant progress,” Detective Inspector Pat Marry, the senior investigating officer of the team at Dundalk Garda Station investigating the disappearance, told the briefing.

Earlier this year, in April, gardaí arrested a man in his 50s from Dundalk.

He was later released without charge while a file was prepared for the DPP.

Ciara, a trainee hairdresser, was last seen at her home at Bachelor’s Walk in the town in the early hours of February 13, 1997, when she was 17-years-old.

The investigation has spanned three decades and involved over 200 lines of enquiry. Almost 130 people have been interviewed by gardaí.

A case review conducted by the Garda Cold Case Unit a number of years ago found that the person or persons involved were most likely from the Dundalk area.

Ciara’s mother, Bernadette, has previously made a heartfelt plea for information, saying she had “just one little girl”.

The evening before her disappearance, Ciara had tea with her mother in a local café.

They went home and watched TV before going to bed around 12.25am.

However, when Bernadette went to check on her daughter at 1.50am, she wasn’t in her room.

It wasn’t unusual for Ciara to slip out like that in the middle of the night and her mother sat up waiting for her to return. When she hadn’t returned by the following morning, her mother alerted the gardaí.