Eamon Molloy laid to rest

In driving wind and rain, several hundred people attended the north Belfast funeral of Eamon Molloy, the first of the "disappeared…

In driving wind and rain, several hundred people attended the north Belfast funeral of Eamon Molloy, the first of the "disappeared" to be recovered.

The IRA abducted Mr Molloy 24 years ago. He was 21. Although his remains were found in a Co Louth graveyard seven weeks ago, his family had to await formal identification before they could lay him to rest.

Yesterday, his family, friends and neighbours walked the short distance from the family home in Ballycarry Street in Ardoyne to attend Requiem Mass at the packed Sacred Heart Church before burying him in a family plot at the city cemetery.

The Bishop of Down and Connor, Dr Patrick Walsh, described Mr Molloy as the victim of a "heinous crime, a crime compounded by the utterly callous manner in which his body was disposed".

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In a personal address to Mr Molloy's mother Susan, his wife Kathleen and his brothers Patrick, Martin, Michael and Emmanuel, Bishop Walsh said no family should ever have been made to suffer the cruelty that had been visited upon them.

In what he described as a "heartfelt plea", the bishop appealed to anyone who could give further information on the whereabouts of the bodies of the disappeared to come forward.

Relatives of Ms Jean McConville, the mother of 10 who was abducted by the IRA in Belfast in 1972, also attended Mr Molloy's funeral. In a homily, the parish priest, Father Patrick McCafferty spoke of "blasphemous sectarianism" whose "dark and hate-driven energy" wore both loyalist and republican disguises.