Joyce Fegan: The role of domestic abuse in Ireland’s 'vanishing' women

There was no mysterious Vanishing Triangle in Ireland, no serial killer on the loose, because in many cases most signs pointed to stalking, abuse and intimate partner violence

A still from Missing: Beyond The Vanishing Triangle on RTE1.

Somewhere along the way this neat narrative got made. The media and the public called it the Vanishing Triangle, referring to an area on the east coast of Ireland where several women and girls went missing between the years of 1979 and 1998. The area was in fact a kind of diamond in shape, reaching as far north as Dundalk, and as far south as Wexford.

A core thread of this mysterious triangle was that there was a big bad wolf at work, a serial killer, linking all cases.