The disappearance of a well-behaved Co Tyrone teenager in Donegal town has sparked fear and bewilderment among local people. Monika Unsworth joined the search operation
The mist over Donegal Bay was so thick that coastguards could hardly make out the diver as his head appeared above water only a few feet away. "Anything?" one of them shouted, trying to make himself heard over the gusting wind and driving rain. The diver just shook his head, his face grim with determination as he went back under water.
Thursday was the third day of continuous searching for 15-year-old Brendan Rushe from Castlederg, Co Tyrone, who vanished after a night out with friends in a Donegal disco. His family, who have spent every waking hour with the search operation, said they had "next to no hope" of finding him alive.
It was a grim ending to what had started as a fun night out for three teenagers on Sunday. As they were still on their half-term break they had been given permission by their parents to go to a disco at the Abbey Hotel in Donegal town.
As Brendan put on a cream shirt and grey trousers and went to meet his two friends on one of the three coaches laid on to make the 45-minute journey, he was full of excitement. After all, it was only his second time to go to a disco and the night was young.
It is not clear what happened next. His friends said everybody was having a good time and thought they had even spotted Brendan talking to a girl, a rare occurrence for the polite, quiet boy with braces on his teeth. What was even more unusual was that he told them he was staying on instead of catching the coach home with them, insisting he would take the last bus, due to leave at around 3 a.m., instead.
Brendan never made the bus. He was spotted wandering around the town centre in the early hours of Monday, when he talked to local gardaí on two occasions, giving them his name and address.
Supt John McFadden said the officers were impressed with the teenager's polite demeanour. "They found him very friendly and nice and had no complaints about him. He said he was going to get a bus home."
Brendan's uncle, Terence Rushe, a tireless member of the search party, said the fact that the teenager had actually talked to gardaí was hard to deal with.
"Frankly, I can't understand how they could talk to a 15-year-old boy from outside town at 4 a.m. and just let him walk away." After a long sigh he added: "Then again, maybe they are well used to teenagers wandering around the town on any given night, who knows?"
ONE of the last possible sightings of Brendan was shortly before 5 a.m. when a teenager knocked on the front door of a B&B on Ballyshannon Road. The landlady did not answer and saw the boy walking back towards the town. Half an hour later a motorist saw a young man at the town's quayside.
Since then there has been no trace of the boy, who is five feet, eight inches tall, with short dark-brown hair and brown eyes.
The Rushe family's hearts sank on Wednesday when a Garda sub-aqua unit found a pair of shoes at Druminnin, around three miles north of Donegal, which his mother Collette thought might be his.
For the next 24 hours, a massive search operation involving more than 100 coastguards and hundreds of volunteers from Castlederg combed every inch of bogland around Lough Mourne, Lough Eske and their feeder rivers. Police sniffer dogs, which had been given pieces of Brendan's clothing to recognise his scent, were scouring the pathless terrain, the fog so thick that their handlers kept losing sight of them.
There was relief on Thursday when Brendan's friends insisted the shoes were not the ones he had worn on the night in question.
Since then, much of the search operation has concentrated on the town's bay itself with more than 100 British soldiers from the Parachute and Prince of Wales's own regiments combing the Northern side of the border. As he anxiously waited for the re-appearance of his unit's divers on Thursday afternoon, Brian McSharry from Killybegs Coastguard said local people were deeply disturbed by the teenager's disappearance.
"The whole story is very peculiar, but it doesn't look good for the young lad," he added.
Men, women and children kept coming over to the Department of the Marine rescue vehicles to ask for news. Every inquiry was answered with a grim shake of the head. A local shopkeeper, Mary Byrne, said people's hearts went out to the Rushe family.
"He seems to have been such a good child. It sends a shiver down the spine of any parent when you realise that you cannot watch them 24 hours a day.
"To think that there are always evil people out there, even in a quiet peaceful little place like this, frightens the life out of me," she added.
An extra 100 gardaí joined the search as it entered its fourth day yesterday, amid slightly improved weather conditions. Father Jim McGonagle, a local priest who has been comforting Brendan's parents, summed up everybody's feelings: "Sure, what can you do but hope against hope?"