‘Disappeared’ Brendan Megraw died from shot to head hears inquest

IRA Disappeared Brendan Megraw, 22, died of a gunshot wound to the head fired at close range, Dublin Coroner’s Court has heard.

His body was recovered at the edge of a peat bog at Oristown, near Kells, Co Meath, on October 1, 2014. An inquest into his death heard how he was abducted from his Belfast home on April 8, 1978, and shot either on that date or immediately after it.

His body was found bent over at the waist with ankles crossed a metre below the surface of the bog, State pathologist Marie Cassidy told the court. Asked if the gun was fired at close range, Dr Cassidy said it was difficult to be precise due to the time that had passed.

The jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing.

Speaking after the inquest, family members called on those with information to end “the agony”.

“Please come forward. Don’t prolong the agony for any of the families,” said Sean Megraw, a brother of the deceased. “All of us with Disappeared, I don’t think we will be satisfied until the last person is located. We are not looking for people to be brought to book, we just want to have the bodies recovered and end the story.”

Brendan Megraw’s widow Marie told how the couple had married in 1977. She was pregnant with their first child when she answered the door of their flat at Stewardstown House, Twinbrook, in Belfast on April 8, 1978.

When she opened the door, nine men pushed past her into the flat wearing stocking masks and surgical gloves. They injected her with an unknown substance they said would calm her and tied her hands and feet. They said her husband had stolen a TV and cassettes, she said.

When Brendan Megraw returned he said he had nothing to hide.

“Brendan gave me a kiss and they left,” she said in her deposition. There was discussion among the family about what to do next.

“The story was that he would be back and not to contact police,” Ciaran Megraw said.

The family went to the police but the first confirmation that Brendan Megraw was dead came in March 1999 when he appeared on the IRA’s list of the Disappeared.

After 36 years in a shallow grave, Brendan Megraw was laid to rest in Co Antrim on November 14, 2014. Sean Megraw said the family was comforted their brother was “resting with his parents and not in a cold boggy grave”.