Sister of Irish woman missing in Portugal stresses support from Irish authorities to guide families

Jean Tighe was 38 years old when she was last seen on July 13, 2020, in Parede near Lisbon in Portugal. Photo: Facebook

The sister of an Irish woman missing in Portugal will stress the need for support from Irish authorities in such cases on Wednesday.

Jean Tighe from Cavan disappeared on July 13, 2020. For the past three years, the Tighe family have been pushing for action from the Portuguese police to pursue Jean’s case. She was 38 years old when she was last seen in Parede near Lisbon.

She was on her second visit to the area that year and had booked a flight on July 12 to return home to Ireland. However, she has not been seen since leaving the Help Yourself hostel in the tourist resort the following afternoon, July 13. 

She was expected to return to the hostel that night but did not. She had been seen leaving the hostel by a hostel worker and that hostel worker has claimed that Jean left with a Brazilian man.

This morning, her sister Leona will address those attending the Missing Persons Day event in Croke Park through a pre-recorded address from New York, where she lives.

In her address, she says: “We discovered that she had planned to stay on in the hostel the night of July 13 and booked a flight on July 12 to fly back to Dublin on July 15. That’s a lot of planned activities. So, from the beginning, we felt something had suddenly happened to affect those plans, and we’ve never heard a plausible explanation of what that might have been.” 

In recent months, Leona has been receiving monthly updates on the case from Portuguese police. Previously, the family was frustrated by a lack of updates from the investigators and felt that Jean’s case was not being seen as a priority.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

She said: “When a loved one disappears abroad, one needs strong people around you to support you emotionally, and professional allies with the skillset and wherewithal to guide you on the journey, help you in interaction with the local authorities, and apply political pressure to ensure the case is not forgotten.

“Because you’re dealing with a language barrier, different police systems, legal systems, people and culture, and trying to fend for yourself in this unfamiliar territory is both hugely frustrating for you and potentially detrimental to the case of the missing, depending on the extent to which emotion boils over, with the danger of bridges being burned. 

"The people best suited to dealing with officialdom abroad are to be found among the ranks of officialdom domestically. It is absolutely crucial that you have them on your side and that they are pleading your case with their counterparts overseas. Without that pressure, it is very difficult to make anything happen.”