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Friends scour city for Down immigrant missing since Sept.

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

But so far, sisters Tracey McCleery and Aine Noade have found no trace of their brother, Declan Noade, who had been in New York for a year.
Noade, 25, is from Ballynahinch, Co. Down, and was planning a trip back to Ireland. He apparently left his house in Maspeth, Queens, on Sept. 13 with his luggage after telling his roommate that he had to go to Manhattan to pick up his ticket for home. He has not been seen since.
“Our last contact was on the 8th of September when he phoned home,” said McCleery. “We sort of knew he was coming home, that it was in his head.”
“We’ve made a lot of phone calls, went to all the bars, talked to friends and the police, called the hospitals, and there has been no trace of him.”
The sisters spent last week in New York and left for home on Saturday. With the help of the Emerald Isle Immigration Center and the Irish Consulate, they managed to get the police to open a missing-person file on their brother.
Because Declan is over 18, police at first told the sisters that they could not open a file unless there was “extreme or suspicious circumstances.”
“When we first came over, we went to the 104th precinct,” McCleery said. “We discovered they weren’t going to open a missing-person file on him.”
“He’s one of seven children,” said Aine Noade. “And he has a twin brother. He would have called home maybe three, four times a month. Then it just stopped.”
The sisters said that through friends they knew that Declan had established a routine of work, playing in a pool league in the evenings and going out at the weekends.
A carpenter by trade, he worked for Pinnacle Construction and, more recently, for Swilly Construction. He had been staying with friends in a house at 60-12 60th St., near Flushing Avenue in Maspeth.
“He is the type of guy who likes the security of friends,” McCleery said.
Noade’s sisters cannot think of any reason their brother would go off with strangers or stop calling.
“It’s not typical of him at all,” Aine Noade said.
They spent the week putting up posters of Noade in Maspeth and also in Bronxville, where they believed he had friends. They also went to the Irish and British Consulates, where they said officials said they would try to see if Declan had entered the UK or Ireland. The sisters believe that he had a British passport.
Garda in Dublin have told the family that they believe he has not flown into Dublin airport.
They also had discovered that Noade had been calling some of his friends in County Down saying that he was “fed up” and wanted to come home.
He had played pool in a local bar on the night of Thursday, Sept. 12, and in his room he left only some work clothes and a few tools.
“We have done everything we can,” said McCleery, “and now we’re going home and getting more documents. Then we will keep in touch with the friends, the Irish Consulate and the local police. If need be, we’ll come back.”
The sisters said that if anyone has any information about Noade, they should call Frank McDarby at (917) 859-1394.

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