'It's hard to believe': 25 years on, grieving Limerick family finally get to bury their son today

On the day of his funeral, Denis Walsh Jr's family ask why his remains went unidentified for a quarter of a century

Mary and Denis Walsh at their home in Caherdavin with a framed photo of their son, Denis, who went missing at the age of 23 in 1996, and who will finally be laid to rest in Mungret today.

“I’m sitting here now with the coffin, it’s 25 years since he was in the house, he’s here now.”

Those were the words of 81-year-old Denis Walsh after the remains of his son Denis Jr were exhumed from a communal grave in Galway yesterday morning.

He will finally be laid to rest today in the family plot in Castlemungret Cemetery, Mungret, following Requiem Mass at 11.30am at Christ the King Church, Caherdavin, Limerick City.

'We always held a faint hope that Denis might walk in the door some day.' Denis Walsh Jr's distraught family were unaware his remains had been discovered just four weeks after he went missing in 1996 — but it wasn't identified as him until February this year. 

In compliance with the current HSE guidelines, Mr Walsh's funeral will be limited to 10 people, and the Requiem Mass is private, but it will be livestreamed at churchservices.tv/caherdavin this morning. 

Denis Jr, 23, who had struggled with his mental health, walked out of the family home on March 9, 1996 and, apart from two positive sightings a few days later, was never seen again.

Body unidentified for 25 years

Fast forward 25 years to February 5 this year, when gardaí arrived at the Walsh family’s home to inform Denis Sr and his wife Mary, 82, that a partial body found on Inis Mór, four weeks after Denis Jr went missing, was their son.

Mr and Mrs Walsh said they have been left with unanswered questions as to why their son’s remains were not identified sooner.

Denis Jr’s unidentified remains were kept in a hospital mortuary for 18 years before being buried in a communal grave alongside several other bodies at Bohermore Cemetery in 2014.

Gardaí: Family had 'justifiable questions'

A letter from gardaí to the family last February acknowledged that the Walsh family had been left with “lots of justifiable questions on how it took so long to identify Denis”.

It stated: “Identification ultimately came about through advances in science and DNA, and there was nothing by way of identification from dental records, fingerprints, or clothing which may have assisted Denis’s identification in 1996 when his remains were recovered.”

Body discovered weeks after disappearance 

A 1996 report in the Tuam Herald on the discovery of the remains stated that an “examination of the badly decomposed body has shown that it was a man aged between 25 and 35”. It went on to say that, “while the body has not as yet been positively identified, according to Gardaí, it is clear the man was well built with neatly-cut brown hair”.

The report noted that it was difficult to estimate the height as the legs were missing.

Gardaí said samples taken from the remains in 1996 and forwarded to the Forensic Science Laboratory were examined in July 2008, March 2011, and June 2017, “with negative results for a DNA match”.

Family unaware a body had been found

Denis Walsh Sr said that he and his wife had provided gardaí with saliva swabs containing their DNA in 2012, and were unaware any bodies had been found.

“It’s hard to believe what happened," Mr Walsh said. 

We always held a faint hope that Denis might walk in the door some day. 

"This could have been all over 25 years ago, and I have to get answers, wherever I get them. 

What gets me is that, yes, we know Denis had a problem and couldn’t be helped as such — but the incompetence that went on afterwards just beggars belief. It’s unbelievable. 

“The gardaí did not join up the dots,” Mr Walsh said. His son, Paul Walsh, added: “There was no connection made as far as we can see.

“We have now got back Denis’s remains, but there are other people still looking for their missing relatives. 

It’s just unbelievable, I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. 

A documentary inquest — at which no witnesses will attend, but their statements will be read into the record — is due to be held into Denis’s death before the end of the month.