Search for IRA victim's body nears end

Gardaí searching for the body of a teenager murdered and buried in a Co Monaghan bog by the IRA in the 1970s are expected to …

Gardaí searching for the body of a teenager murdered and buried in a Co Monaghan bog by the IRA in the 1970s are expected to call off the operation this weekend.

Diggers have been focusing on two areas close to the village of Emyvale in a bid to discover the remains of Columba McVeigh, who was 17 when he was taken away and killed by the IRA in 1975.

The latest operation is the third attempt to find the body of the teenager. Previous efforts lasting a number of weeks in the same area in 1999 and a year later ended in failure.

Last week the Commission for the Location of Victims Remains was handed fresh information about the spot where the youth may have been buried from the IRA by an intermediary. As a result police examined the bog and a decision was made to resume digging.

READ MORE

Mr McVeigh, from Donaghmore in Co Tyrone, was abducted and killed by the IRA, who claimed he was spying for the British army. He was living in the Dolphin's Barn suburb of Dublin when he was abducted by the IRA.

Mr McVeigh's mother, Vera, said she wanted to bury her son's remains before she herself died.

The new search got under way 10 days after what are thought to be the remains of another of the disappeared, Belfast woman Mrs Jean McConville, were found on Shelling Hill beach in Co Louth. Earlier searches of another beach in the same area for Mrs McConville had proved fruitless.