McVeigh body search is 'unproductive'
The opening stages of a new bid to find the body of another of the “disappeared” – people who vanished after being abducted and murdered by the IRA up to 30 years ago – proved unproductive in a bogland area of Co Monaghan today.
Mechanical diggers and a team of gardaí moved in this morning, concentrating on two areas close to the village of Emyvale in a bid to discover the remains of Columba McVeigh, who was aged 17 at the time he was taken away and killed by the now on-ceasefire terrorist group in 1975.
The latest operation, which is likely to take the rest of the week to complete, will mark the third attempt to locate the body of the teenager.
Previous efforts lasting a number of weeks in the same area in 1999 and a year later ended in failure.
Last week the Dublin-based Commission for the Location of Victims Remains was handed fresh information about the spot where Columba may have been buried from the IRA by an intermediary.
As a result gardaí examined the bog and a decision was made to resume digging.
Commission joint chairman John Wilson stressed caution about being over optimistic in relation to the latest dig.
Speaking at the scene, he said new information about the location of the youth’s body had been received pinponting the two possible spots.
He added “The information indicated there is a possibility that we will find the body there.
“I hope it is accurate, and I hope it is specific.”
Mr Wilson said he hoped the reports were accurate for the sake of Colomba McVeigh’s elderly mother Vera, declaring “Closure should be reached on this.
“I have not the slightest idea how long this will go on. This has always been difficult for the families and their feelings have to be remembered.”
Mr McVeigh, from Donaghmore in Co Tyrone, was abducted and killed by the IRA, who claimed he was spying for the British army.
He was living in the Dolphin’s Barn suburb of Dublin when he was abducted by the IRA.
Last week Mr McVeigh’s mother, Vera, said she wanted to bury her son’s remains before she herself died.
The new search got under way 10 days after what are thought to be the remains of another of the disappeared, Belfast woman Jean McConville were found, reportedly by accident, on Shelling Hill beach in County Louth.
Earlier searches of another beach in the same area for Mrs McConville had proved fruitless.
Mrs McConville, a mother of 10, was abducted from her Belfast home by an IRA gang in 1972. She was accused by the terrorists of helping a British soldier who was fatally wounded during a gun battle with the IRA near Belfast’s Divis Flats.
