'You're not in it on your own' — Relatives of Ireland's missing persons gather in Dublin

A gathering of more than 100 people who have experienced a most singular form of pain, the loss of a loved one and, in most cases, no body to grieve, and no grave to visit

Minister of State at the Department of Justice and Equality with responsibility for Law Reform James Browne addressing conference, held in person for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic. Picture: Gareth Chaney/ Collins

When you speak to the family or relatives of someone who has been declared missing and then never found, there is a universal characteristic. A burden they carry.

Doubtless some are aware they have it, and others are not. But it is there. A grief that has never been dealt with, not fully at any rate, because to do so was impossible. It is in their faces.