Excavation work continues in search for ira victim

Work is continuing this week in the search for one of the Disappeared – Joe Lynskey – at Coghalstown, near Wilkinstown. 

Three diggers are operating at the site as the search takes place on a five-acre area of farmland alongside the Wilkinstown-Rathkenny road.

Mr Lynskey was a former Cistercian monk from the Beechmount area of West Belfast who was a member of the IRA and who went missing during the Summer of 1972. Forty years after his disappearance, republicans admitted that he had been “executed and buried” by the IRA. No reason was given for the killing.

Jon Hill, senior investigator with the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) said that the site of the search had been bogland which had been reclaimed as farmland. The entire area covers about 15 acres but he said the area of search had been narrowed down to five acres. Searchers already have carried out a geophysical survey and introduced a cadaver dog to the site before this week's search got underway.

The search is a couple of hundred yards from where two other Belfast men, Kevin Wright and Seamus McKee, are believed to have been buried after their killing by the IRA and a few miles from Oristown bog where the remains of Brendan Megraw were recovered by the commission last year.