Garda dig for missing man continues

Gardaí are today continuing an excavation operation in a bid to find the body of a man thought to have been killed by the IRA more than 20 years ago.

A team of officers was carrying out a second day of digging in north Co Monaghan, near the border with South Armagh, in the hunt for 57-year-old Charles Armstrong.

They were acting on information received by the Commission for the Location of Victims Remains, set up after the IRA said it would assist in finding the buried bodies of the ‘‘disappeared’’.

Between six and 10 Garda specialist officers were digging in several locations near Cullaville.

The bodies of two young Belfast men, also killed by the IRA, were located near the search site during a previous dig which lasted 30 days in 1999.

Mr Armstrong was last seen going to Mass near his home in Crossmaglen on August 16, 1981.

His car was later recovered south of the border in Dundalk with traces of gunpowder inside.

Garda Inspector Jim Marks said: ‘‘We have had some of the family here. They lit candles here and said prayers and we are very hopeful that we may be able to do something to help them at this very sad time.’’

The IRA admitted in 1999 that it had killed nine people and gave a commitment to help locate the bodies leading to a huge series of excavations and searches in counties Louth, Meath, Monaghan and Wicklow.

The IRA said it had set up a special unit under a ‘‘senior officer’’ to investigate the killings and help return the remains of the dead to their families for burial.

So far just three bodies have been found at unmarked graves after being pinpointed by an IRA intermediary.

During previous excavations the remains of Belfast men Eamon Molloy, who disappeared in 1975, John McClory, 17, and Brian McKinney, 23, who were murdered in 1978, were found.

Other searches were carried out near the towns of Wilkinstown and Kells, in Co Meath for the body of 22-year-old Brendan Megraw, who was killed by the IRA in 1978 after being accused of being a British spy.

A vain search was carried out for Belfast man, Daniel McIlhone, was believed to have been buried outside the Co Wicklow town of Blessington.

Another search was carried out at a beach car park near Carlingford, Co Louth, for mother-of-10 Jean McConville who was shot in 1972 for going to the aid of a British soldier who had been shot.