Mother of child missing for 30 years weeps for McCanns
Ann Boyle has been praying daily for some clue to what happened to her six-year-old daughter Mary, who vanished the day after St Patrick’s Day 30 years ago.
Now, Gerry and Kate McCann’s desperate search for their four-year-old girl has stirred deep pity in Ann.
The McCann family roots in Crolly and Burtonport are just a few miles from Ann Boyle’s home in Kincasslagh, Co Donegal.
Mary, a twin, vanished without trace on March 18, 1977, while visiting her grandparents 80km away at Cashelard near Ballyshannon. Ann said that her daily prayers for Mary now include a plea for the relief of the anguish of the McCann family whose daughter vanished from their Algarve holiday apartment a month ago.
Ann said: “I’ll never forget the panic that was in my heart when Mary disappeared. For days I was sure she would be found.
“My heart goes out to the McCann’s. I feel heartfelt sorrow for them.
“I know what I went through and my husband Charlie. We felt as if our hearts were going to burst at times.” One of the hardest things she and her family had to face was returning home and attempting to get on with their lives.
“We used to go back up quite a bit in the beginning and then everything died down and I could not understand how people could go back to normal life and carry on when Mary was missing. It was very hard to go back to normal life.”
Now Ann, a widow since husband Charlie drowned two years ago, still harbours hope that the mystery that has haunted her will be solved before she dies.
She said: “I don’t think I’ll see Mary alive but I would like to think that if she is dead that I would find her body or some reason why she went missing that day. I’d like to know what happened to Mary.”
