Gardai say Clare woman's death is being treated as 'suspicious'

Gardaí have described the death of a 23-year old Clare woman as suspicious, following the discovery of her charred body in a burnt-out caravan on the Clare-Galway border a week ago.

Emer O'Loughlin, a native of Ennistymon, was yesterday positively identified by gardaí after a week of DNA analysis at the Garda forensic laboratory.

Supt Paul Mockler of Gort Garda station confirmed that Ms O'Loughlin's death was now being treated as "suspicious".

The body was discovered just before 4pm last Friday in the townland of Ballybornagh, between Tubber and Kinvara, on the fringes of the Burren.

A full-time art student at the Galway and Mayo Institute of Technology, Ms O'Loughlin had been living in the Ballybornagh area for a number of years.

Last night Supt Mockler appealed to taxi or hackney drivers who may have carried a male passenger from Galway city to the area last Friday morning to contact gardaí.

"Our appeal is to taxi or hackney drivers if they delivered a fare from Galway city last Friday morning to this area," he said.

"We are specifically interested if it is a man, but anyone who may have made such a run and delivered a fare to the Kinvara-Boston area."

A Garda forensic examination of the area has already been carried out. A postmortem examination of Ms O'Loughlin's body was performed last Saturday by the deputy State Pathologist, Dr Michael Curtis.

Fr Richard Tarpey, Ennistymon parish priest, last night said locals were "very, very sad and upset". "The poor girl has lost her life, and we are very sad and we hope that her family find closure before too long and some consolation that the perpetrator of the crime, if it is a crime, is caught."

Anyone with information in relation to Ms O'Loughlin's death can contact the Garda at 091-636400.