Family of 'disappeared' teen hopes for breakthrough

The family of a teenager abducted, murdered and secretly buried by the IRA hoped their meeting with Ian Paisley today would help secure the return of his body and those of the rest of the North's disappeared.

Oliver McVeigh, whose 17-year-old brother Columba from Donaghmore in Co Tyrone was kidnapped and killed by the IRA, was commenting as his 82-year-old mother Vera prepared to meet the Democratic Unionist leader at a location near Dungannon.

The meeting was arranged by DUP Assembly member Lord Morrow after Catholic human rights campaigner Monsignor Denis Faul sent a message from his deathbed earlier this year to Mr Paisley to champion the cause of families whose loved ones were abducted by the IRA and whose remains have not been found.

Mr McVeigh said: “We would hope he (Mr Paisley) would be able to apply more pressure on Sinn Féin/IRA and on the British and Irish governments to find not just Columba’s remains but the other remains.

“Closure for our family will not just come with Columba’s body being returned. We want to see all the bodies come back, including the two people the Provisionals have not admitted abducting.”

At the funeral of Monsignor Faul, who died aged 74 after a long battle with cancer, mourners including Sinn Féin chief negotiator Martin McGuinness were told the outspoken priest wanted the bodies of the North’s disappeared returned.

Bishop Gerrard Clifford, auxiliary bishop of Armagh, said: “His plea even on his deathbed was addressed to those who had any knowledge or hint of where these bodies had been placed. His words were clear: ‘Anyone who has knowledge of the unburied bodies bears the responsibility for that’.”

Mr McVeigh paid tribute today to Monsignor Faul’s determination to end the agony of the disappeared’s families.

“The fact that he went to Ian Paisley for help speaks volumes,” he said. “He was a remarkable person and very determined to see this resolved – even from his deathbed.”

In 1999, the IRA admitted Columba McVeigh’s murder.

A two-week search for his body took place along a mountainside bog on the southern side of the Irish border near Emyvale, Co Monaghan, after the IRA passed on fresh information about where his body was believed to be buried.

Gardaí were unable to recover the body.

The Commission for the Recovery of Victims’ Remains has also failed to locate the bodies of:

:: Kevin McKee and Seamus Wright, both 25, who disappeared from the Andersontown area of west Belfast in October 1972, and who the IRA claimed were buried at Coghallstown, near Navan in Co Meath;

:: Danny McIlhone from west Belfast, who went missing in July 1981 and whose body is believed to be concealed at Ballynultagh in Co Wicklow;

:: Brendan Megraw, 24, from Twinbrook, on the outskirts of west Belfast, who was abducted in April 1978 and is believed to be buried at Oristown near Kells in Co Meath.

Other bodies of people abducted and murdered by the IRA, such as that of west Belfast mother-of-10 Jean McConville, were located.

The IRA has denied involvement in the disappearance of two men from Crossmaglen, Co Armagh.

Charlie Armstrong, a 55-year-old father of five, vanished on August 16 1981 after leaving his Crossmaglen home to drive a pensioner to Mass.

Gerard Evans, 24, was last seen alive in March 1979 in Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, on the southern side of the border trying to hitch a lift home.

After a meeting with the Armstrong family in August, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams appealed for fresh information on the cases of both missing men.