Public urged to break silence over teen's murder
Intimidation is forcing those with knowledge of the IRA’s abduction and murder of a Northern teenager to keep quiet, the Democratic Unionist Party leader said today.
Ian Paisley said the wall of silence since the 1975 kidnapping and death of Columba McVeigh, 17, who was accused of being an informer for the British Security Forces, had been responsible for years of torment for his family.
His body has never been found, despite extensive searches near the border, and Mr Paisley said his elderly mother Vera needed closure when he met her in Dungannon this afternoon.
“I believe that there are those in this community who know…the pressure of the community must be on them,” he said.
“It is time for you to speak. You have been responsible by your silence. You have been responsible for years of agony, years of tears and years of trial and the time has come if you are a man.
“I am making several inquiries at the minute. There are other lines that need to be followed up.
"There could be something somewhere where there’s been some record kept of what’s happened and that could be inaccurate, but we have a long struggle because these people have no intention of doing this except for that pressure that is on them.”
Mr Paisley was contacted by the late Monsignor Denis Faul, a campaigner for those abducted and accused of being informers by the IRA, asking for his help.
In July the North Antrim MP said Msgr Faul had told him not to give in until the bodies had been retrieved.
Today’s meeting in Co Tyrone was set up by DUP peer Lord Morrow.
Mr Paisley added: “From what information I have I think there are some people who would speak but there is pressure on them from another section of the community to keep quiet and don’t speak and I am appealing to the people that they can come and see me if they want to.”
Mrs McVeigh, who is in her 80s, has repeatedly criticised republicans for failing to give evidence to the police and said she was angry at her son’s killers.
“He was only 17, you know. He was not an old man playing cowboys and Indians. He was a 17-year-old son,” she said.
“There’s lots of them you know…down the road going into the chapel and they won’t look at you down the road coming out of it.
“That scum, I would not even give them butter for my bread. They should have had it done 30 years ago. Think about it. “
In 2003 Mrs McVeigh said she had given up hope of ever finding her son’s body.
She was speaking as gardaí completed a 14-day excavation at bogland at Bragan near Emyvale, Co Monaghan.
The operation was the third dig in the area following new information about his whereabouts passed to the Irish Government by the IRA.
In 1999 the IRA offered to help locate the bodies of the nine so-called Disappeared.
Three victims were found in 1999 while west Belfast mother Jean McConville was found by a walker at Shelling Beach in Co Louth. She was captured by the IRA during the conflict and accused of being an informer.
Republicans have said that they gave all evidence available to the special North-South commission established to search for the bodies of the Disappeared in 1999.
Lord Morrow said: “Other families are suffering just as horrendously and there is a cry from them also. They want the return of the bodies of their loved ones. That is not a big ask.”
