"We'd rather she was buried here. It's a beautiful area. It beats being under the foundations of someone's house - we were told she was buried in west Belfast."
Seamus McKendry looked around the windswept sand dunes and curved shore of Templeton Beach as, behind him, a mechanical digger was scraping off the surface of the car park in the search for the body of his mother-in-law, Mrs Jean McConville.
Mr McKendry and his wife, Helen, have been campaigning for the return of Helen's mother's body for over four years.
Yesterday eight of Mrs McConville's nine children assembled in the Co Louth town of Carlingford, about five miles from Templeton beach. The ninth family member arrives today. It will be only the second time they have all been united in the 26 years since their mother's abduction and murder by the IRA, according to Mr McHendry.
Their father had died less than a year before Mrs McConville was taken from the family home in 1972. Her eldest son, Robert, was interned at the time.
Helen, then 15, tried to hold the family together, but after a while they were all taken into care. They were not even kept together - her younger brothers, Michael, then 11 and Thomas, 9, were sent to Kircubbin Home in Co Down, while the others went to the Nazareth Home in Belfast.
Helen McKendry got the news shortly after 4 p.m. on Saturday that her mother's burial place had been revealed by the IRA. She and Seamus immediately headed for the scene. "She was in a bad state yesterday," Mr McHendry said. "She headed up the beach on her own crying."
Her sister, Ms Agnes McConville, arrived at the beach yesterday morning, sobbing and carrying a red rose. "She is extremely distraught," said Mr McKendry.
He praised the gardai and local people, some of whom had offered the family accommodation, for their sensitivity and hospitality.
"I knew it (the announcement) was going to happen," said Mrs McConville's son, Michael. "I just didn't know when. Then I heard it on the 6 o'clock news and I phoned Helen. She said they were searching here.
"It's been hard to cope with over the years. This will resolve things, I think, but I am not convinced we will find the body. So much has happened over the years."
As evening fell, gardai were settling in for a long search. In the afternoon a few knots of local people stood on the beach watching the gardai dig, while their children played on the rocks nearby.
Later, curious sightseers arrived, including some families with children who gathered on the sand dunes overlooking the scene.
Late yesterday, eight members of the family, accompanied by partners, visited the scene. One brother had not yet arrived.