Human remains discovered at site of previous search for disappeared Troubles victim

Irish Examiner

16-05-2025

Further fragments of human remains have been found at a site where investigators had carried out a search for disappeared victim of the Troubles, Joe Lynskey.
The development comes less than two months after investigators announced that remains exhumed from the cemetery site in Annyalla, Co Monaghan, were not those of Mr Lynskey.
The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains (ICLVR) said other remains have now been found after it received information about a different area of the cemetery that does not incorporate any family graves.
Searches were carried out at the cemetery for Joe Lynskey, one of the IRA's Disappeared (WAVE Trauma Centre/PA)
The commission stressed that the information did not directly relate to the disappearance of Mr Lynskey.
However, investigators said they were keeping an 'open mind', pending the results of tests to determine whether the remains do belong to the IRA murder victim.
Mr Lynskey, a former monk from Belfast who later joined the IRA, was abducted, murdered and secretly buried by members of the republican paramilitary group in 1972.
He was one of 17 people who were disappeared by republican paramilitaries during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
The ICLVR did not become aware that Mr Lynskey was one of the disappeared until 2010. A number of searches since then have all failed to locate his remains.
The commission was set up by the UK and Irish governments during the peace process to investigate the whereabouts of the disappeared. Thirteen have been formally found.
As well as Mr Lynskey, the commission is also tasked with finding three other disappeared victims — Co Tyrone teenager Columba McVeigh, British Army Captain Robert Nairac, and Seamus Maguire, who was in his mid-20s and from near Lurgan, Co Armagh.
The commission opened a grave in November last year after it received information related to 'suspicious' historical activity during the 1970s at a grave in Annyalla cemetery.
The site of the first search at Annyalla Cemetery in Co Monaghan, where the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains carried out an exhumation (Jonathan McCambridge/PA)
It instigated the exhumation operation to establish whether Mr Lynskey had been secretly buried there by the IRA.
In March, the commission said tests had confirmed that the remains did not belong to Mr Lynskey.
It said the remains recovered from the grave also did not belong to any member of the family who own the plot.
The ICLVR further confirmed that the remains were not those of any of the three other disappeared victims the commission continues to search for.
Eamonn Henry, lead investigator at the ICLVR, announced the latest development at the Annyalla site in a statement on Friday.
'Following the recent exhumation at Annyalla Cemetery in relation to the search for Joe Lynskey, information came to the ICLVR indicating another small area of interest within the confines of the cemetery,' he said.
'This was not another family grave site.
'I want to emphasise that this information did not relate directly to the disappearance of Joe Lynskey and so until we have a positive identification or the elimination of the remains as those of Joe Lynskey or any of the other of the disappeared, we have to keep an open mind'.
We know only too well that the Lynskey family have had hopes raised before only to be bitterly disappointed and so, as ever, expectations have to be managed
He said Ireland's State Pathologist had been notified and the remains have been taken away for technical examination.
Mr Henry added: 'We know only too well that the Lynskey family have had hopes raised before only to be bitterly disappointed and so, as ever, expectations have to be managed.
'The process of identification could take some time and we will continue to offer the family what support we can'.
Mr Henry renewed the appeal for information on all of the remaining disappeared cases.
'Regardless of the outcome, this work at Annyalla shows that where we have credible information, we will act on it,' he said.
'This week also marks the 48th anniversary (May 15) of the murder and secret burial of Robert Nairac.
'We need information on his and the other outstanding cases and anyone with information can be assured that it will be treated in the strictest confidence.
'Our humanitarian work is entirely information-driven to get us to the right places where we can use the considerable technical expertise at our disposal to locate the remains of those disappeared and to return them to their loved ones for Christian burial.
'Anyone who helps with that will be doing a great service to families who have suffered so much for so long'.