Father searching for Derry man

The man, Patrick Kelly, 19, have not been seen since Jan. 17, according to Kelly’s father, Pat, who has been in Boston and Somerville for a week looking for his son.
Pat Kelly is deeply worried but believed that his son disliked his situation in Boston and may have gone to New York City.
“He was getting into bother making his rent,” Kelly said by phone from Boston on Monday. “The day he left, I sent him out money by Western Union and he called to get the number to pick it up.”
He then told his roommate that he was going for a walk around 1 o’clock [in the afternoon] and never came back.
Concerned for his son, Kelly called the police and said that initially he did not feel that the authorities shared his sense of urgency. But that changed, he said, after Dana heard about the young man.
The internationally acclaimed singer is also from Derry and was in Washington, D.C., for a concert. After hearing about Patrick Kelly, the singer contacted Rep. Chris Smith, who, as Kelly put it, “called the Walsh visa program and told the police to get the finger out.”
A police officer who said he worked all weekend on the case said, “My heart bleeds for the family,” but so far, apart from a false lead to Quincy, he has not found any firm evidence of Patrick’s whereabouts.
The Walsh visa program, created to bring young people from Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic’s border counties to the U.S. for job training and “conflict resolution in a diverse society,” has been criticized recently for its poor organization and lack of responsiveness to participants — and some of the young people on Walsh visas have also been described as immature.
Of all the Walsh visa cities where young Irish people have been sent for work training, however, Boston has been seen as the most successful. A call to the Walsh visa program director in Boston about Patrick Kelly was not returned.
Pat Kelly says that his son was unhappy on the program.
“It wasn’t working too well. He was in a job and he liked it, and then he was moved to another job that he didn’t like, where he was looking after mentally ill children,” Kelly said. “And he was having problems paying the rent. So they arranged to have him sent back on Dec. 14.”
His son did not want to leave the U.S., however, Kelly continued.
“A friend has told us that he had said that he was thinking of leaving Boston [and that he did not want to go home], that he was fed up with Boston.”
Kelly was finally able to get to Boston to start looking for his son himself.
“We flew over last week and brought 500 posters with us. We’ve been circulating them around Boston,” he said. But, he added: “I’m thinking maybe he might be in New York.”
At the same time, another young Derry man, Sean McGarry, left the program and is believed to be missing as well. Both young men took their passports with them as well as personal belongings.
On Tuesday evening, Pat Kelly flew home to Derry, because he is a workingman who cannot afford to stay away from his job. Before leaving, he appealed to anyone who might know of his son’s whereabouts to contact the police in Somerville at (617) 625-1600, ext. 7220.
On the telephone he sounded weary and worried.
“The police have been checking hospitals and morgues,” he said. For most people, he said, Patrick is “just a case of another boy gone missing.”