Woman gives up hope of finding mother’s body

A woman wept tonight as she gave up hope of ever finding the remains of her mother, who was murdered and secretly buried by the IRA.

Agnes McConville, whose mother Jean McConville disappeared almost three decades ago, also bitterly attacked Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams over the failure to trace the body.

‘‘I feel let down that Gerry Adams did not put enough pressure on to pinpoint the location where they buried my mother,’’ she said.

Choking back tears, she continued: ‘‘I have now no grave of my mother to visit, all I am left with is the childhood memories of my mother.’’

Ms McConville was at Templetown Beach County Louth the location the IRA gave as the spot where they buried widowed mother-of-10 Mrs McConville after murdering her in December 1972.

Mrs McConville, a Protestant who married a Catholic was abducted and killed days after tending to a wounded soldier near her family home in Divis Flats off the Falls Road, Belfast.

Her son-in-law, Seamus McKendry and a family friend also spent the day at Templetown as diggers moved into the site for the third time.

However, the work in progress today was to rebuild the seaside car park and the small party was there to watch the digging in the hope that it may finally unearth some sign of the murdered woman.

But tonight Ms McConville held out no hope of ever being able to give her mother a proper funeral.

‘‘This is the end of her dig,’’ she told BBC Radio Ulster.

‘‘There will be no more of the late Jean McConville’s remains. That’s it. All that’s left is Templetown Beach and its surrounds.

‘‘It’s heartbreaking to know that this is the end where we were here two years ago and spent many days hoping to find her remains.

‘‘No remains, no nothing, and no further on than we were 30 years ago. Now we are left in the black till we go to our own graves.’’