By Andrew Bushe
DUBLIN — Gardai have suspended searches on two of six sites they have been investigating since information about the possible location of secret graves of the so-called disappeared — IRA murder victims from the 1970s and ’80s — was handed over on May 28.
Continued excavations are also under review at the other sites after extensive digging by 120 gardai after the IRA gave what it claims are the details of the burial sites of eight of its victims scattered over four counties.
Earlier this year, the IRA accepted responsibility for murdering nine people it accused of informing, collaboration or theft.
After its members were given limited immunity from prosecution by the parliaments in Dublin and London, the IRA provided the locations of the graves to clergy, who acted as intermediaries.
Seamus McHendry, spokesman for the Families of the Disappeared group, said he is convinced the IRA has more information that it has handed over thus far.
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McHendry, a son-in-law of one of the disappeared, Jean McConville, said the family knows the identity of 10 of the 12 people who abducted her in 1972.
"We know they are alive and well," he said of the suspects. "The stories from the IRA that the individuals concerned have Alzheimer’s, etc. just do not wash."
He said the digs should continue.
"If you are lost on a country road and you have no one else to ask for information only the village idiot, you are going to ask him and you are going to accept his information," he said. "That is what we are left with here. We can’t dig up the whole of Ireland, we know that. But where there is reasonable hope, then I feel the digs should continue for the foreseeable future."
One body recovered
The only body recovered was dug up by the IRA itself and left in a new coffin in a remote border graveyard in County Louth. It is believed to be Eamonn Molloy, who went missing from Belfast in 1975.
Searches at sites in Meath and Wicklow were the first to be abandoned. As digging continued for the remains of McConville, a widowed mother of 10, at Templetown Beach, Carlingford, Co. Louth, one of her sons angrily denounced the IRA.
Robert McConville, who was 17 when his mother was abducted, said he believes that the IRA knows the locations of the graves and should now come forward and stop prolonging the agony of the families.
He said the IRA men who carried out the murders would now be about 50 years old.
"They may have children of their own," McConville said. "What sort of conscience have these people got when they can watch this dig going on for three weeks on TV? I am sure their children are asking questions about why they are doing this. What have they got to say?
"We are reliving the whole 27 years for the past three weeks. It is a tragedy, but it is a bigger tragedy to put the families of all the disappeared through this.
"I have one message for the IRA: Stop using the families of the disappeared as political pawns and come out with the correct locations of the bodies. After so many years they can pinpoint their arsenals and know exactly where they are."
McConville described what was happening as "sick." "These people claim to be freedom fighters for the working-class people," he said. "They not only killed our mother, but they killed a complete family."
When Jean McConville, 37, was abducted by a gang after she had tended a mortally injured British soldier outside her home in Divis Flats in Belfast, the parking lot at Templetown hadn’t yet been built.
The location for her grave was given as a parking bay, but the scale of the dig there is now enormous, with about 150,000 tons of sand excavated.
Virtually the whole lot and an area alongside has been dug to a depth of almost 10 feet. The dig site now covers about 15,000 square feet.
Digs halted in Meath, Wicklow
Excavations stopped after over two and a half acres of Oristown Bog, near Kells, Co. Meath, had been excavated. It was claimed to be the location of the remains of Belfastman Brendan McGraw, who vanished in 1978.
Digging was also stopped after over two acres of remote mountainside bog at Lacken, near Blessington, Co. Wicklow, had been excavated. It was claimed to be the grave of Belfastman Danny McIlhone, who vanished in 1981.
A Garda spokesman said the search areas had been hugely extended. "We believe we have nowhere else to go in relation to these particular searches at this particular time," the spokesman said.
At Coghalstown Wood, near Navan, Co. Meath, five acres have been excavated to a depth of six to 15 feet. Extensive tree clearance was undertaken before the dig began.
The site was claimed to be the graves of Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee, both from Belfast, who vanished in 1972.
On bogland at Colgagh, Co. Monaghan, where John McClory, 17, and Brian McKinney, 23, who disappeared in 1978, are claimed to be buried, the site now covers over 10,000 square feet.
Flooding has caused problems on bogland at Carrigroe near Emyvale, Co. Monaghan, where 13,000 square feet in area have been excavated. It is claimed that Columba McVeigh, 17, from County Tyrone, was buried there after he vanished in 1975.