For the third time in just over four years, the Garda diggers returned to a remote Co Monaghan bog yesterday where the body of "disappeared" teenager Columba McVeigh is alleged to lay.
The 17-year-old from Donaghmore, Co Tyrone was abducted and killed by the IRA in 1975, and since then hopes that his body could be found have been periodically strengthened and dashed as information passed on by the IRA failed to disclose its whereabouts.
Sources close to yesterday's search - confined to an area of bogland which hadn't previously been dug - said it was likely to be the last. The new information given by the IRA pinpoints the burial location to an area about the size of a football pitch, next to a rocky, dirt track which had to be laid by gardaí on their first visit to the site in May 1999. At that time, the area had been overgrown and could be accessed only by foot.
It took gardaí a day to lay the track and drain the three-quarter acre site before the diggers, helped by sniffer dogs and metal detectors, moved in. The six-week search produced nothing. Nor did a two-week follow-up search in 2000. Gardaí, as a result, were understandably cautious in talking up the latest dig.
"We are more hopeful than optimistic that something will happen," said Garda spokesman Supt John Farrelly.
"We believe the information was given genuinely, and we are not going to leave an inch idle within the area we said we would do. But we would always be slow to say we were optimistic."
Mr John Wilson, chairman of the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains, which just over a week ago received the new information on the body's alleged whereabouts from the IRA, struck a similar tone. On a visit to the site at Braggin near Emyvale early yesterday, the former tánaiste said he did not wish to unduly raise the hopes of the McVeigh family but he would not be there if he did not believe a find was possible.
In a follow-up statement, the commission welcomed the search, saying it sincerely hoped it would bring an end to 28 years of waiting and uncertainty, and help to fulfil the family's wish to have a Christian burial. Cautioning against "over-optimism", it added, however: "Experience has shown the passage of time can render unreliable even the most precise information from the best of sources."
Among the difficulties encountered in similar searches for the "disappeared" have been dramatic changes to the natural landscape. Trees, walls and other landmarks used to identify locations by the IRA can no longer be found three decades later. In the case of the Braggin bog, sandwiched between forests about a mile from the border, there were no distinguishing landmarks - other than the access path and a clearing to one side. Gardaí, who ventured onto the site at 8 a.m. in blue overalls and wellingtons, used earth mounds left by the previous searches as markers to identify the areas in which to dig.
Starting with shovels, the gardaí quickly called in the help of a mechanical digger which began boring a series of trenches, each six feet deep, to be searched and then later filled in. The gardaí - a team of less than half a dozen from the Monaghan Division - are set to continue for an expected four more days.
Two areas are due to be covered, one in the centre of the bog, measuring 85 yards by 25 yards, and the second less than a hundred metres away next to some young trees. Gardaí were not expecting any further information from the IRA, which had been channelled through the commission. However, Supt Farrelly said: "If information comes in on any of the sites it will be assessed, and if tangible we will always act on it."
As for the McVeighs, the victim's 79-year-old mother Vera last week said she was "always hopeful" her son's body would be found. A family member last night expressed appreciation for the work that had been done in trying to find the remains, adding "we continue to be hopeful".