Missing and Unsolved: Ireland's Disappeared: The Unsolved Cases of Ireland's Missing Persons

By Barry Cummins

They are some of Ireland's most famous names, for all the wrong reasons. They are Ireland's missing women, many of them murdered and their bodies hidden by evil killers who remain at large. They include Annie McCarrick, who was murdered in the Dublin-Wicklow mountains; Jo Jo Dullard, who was abducted and murdered while hitching a lift in Co. Kildare; and Fiona Pender, who was seven months pregnant when she was murdered and hidden at an unknown place in the midlands.
And then there are Ireland's missing children. What ever happened to little Mary Boyle, last seen walking near her grandparents' home in Co. Donegal? And where is Philip Cairns, who was abducted from a Co. Dublin roadside while walking to school?
Missing is a disturbing book, but it is also a tribute to the remarkable bravery of ordinary families who have lost a loved one in the most cruel and unexplained of circumstances.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gill Books
• Release date: Oct 15, 2010
• ISBN: 9780717151479

Barry Cummins

Barry Cummins is a news journalist with RTÉ and the author of four bestsellers: Missing, Lifers, Unsolved and Without Trace. His latest book is The Cold Case Files. He previously worked as the Crime Correspondent with Today FM, where he was the recipient of two Justice in Media Awards.

Book preview

1

Annie McCarrick

In March 1993, 26-year-old Annie McCarrick was abducted and murdered in the Wicklow Mountains. A native of Long Island, New York, she had left her home in Sandymount, Dublin, late on the afternoon of Friday 26 March. She travelled to nearby Ranelagh, where she got on a bus heading for Enniskerry, the picturesque village in north Co. Wicklow, just east of the Wicklow Mountains. This was the last definite sighting of Annie McCarrick. Some hours later a woman matching her description was seen by members of the staff in Johnnie Fox’s Pub, just north of Enniskerry, in the company of a man in his twenties. Annie McCarrick was known to have visited this pub before, where she loved to listen to bands playing Irish and country music.

Despite numerous appeals for information, the woman matching Annie McCarrick’s description has never been found. Perhaps crucially, the man spotted with that unidentified woman has never come forward. Was it Annie and the man who would later murder her? The investigation into Annie McCarrick’s disappearance was privately classified as a murder investigation almost immediately. The fact that she was probably murdered by a man who has attacked or murdered other women has caused immense frustration for gardaí, who admit they never got a break in the case.

Annie McCarrick’s disappearance was totally out of character. She was no stranger to Ireland, having lived in Dublin for three years while studying in Dublin and Maynooth. Her murder, and the fact that her body has not been found, has caused unimaginable distress for her parents, John and Nancy McCarrick, who have lost their only child. They are now divorced and deal with their pain separately.

In January 1993 Annie McCarrick left New York for the last time to travel to Dublin. She wanted to see, once and for all, whether she would settle down and make her home in Ireland. Three months later she would be abducted and murdered.

Just after three o’clock on the afternoon of Friday 26 March 1993, Annie McCarrick pulled the door shut on her apartment in Sandymount. It was a dry, fresh day, and she was planning a walk in Enniskerry. Earlier that day she had phoned her friend Anne O’Dwyer in Rathgar, asking her if she would like to join her for a stroll in the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains. Anne had hurt her foot and told Annie she wouldn’t be able for the trip. Annie wished her friend a speedy recovery and decided to head for Enniskerry by herself. It was a day off: she wasn’t due back in work in Café Java in Leeson Street until the next day. She had arranged for two friends to call over the following evening for dinner, and she might meet another old college friend for a drink on Sunday. Today she was at a loose end, and it was just the weather for a walk in a part of Ireland she had grown to know and love. She put on her favourite tweed coat, grabbed her handbag, and headed out the door.

As AnnieMcCarrick left her apartment at St Catherine’s Court in Sandymount, a plumber, Bernard Sheeran, was working at a nearby apartment. He spotted her leaving her home and heading down the road. She was also seen by Bruno Borza, who ran the local chip shop: he saw her heading down Newgrove Avenue towards the terminus of the number 18 bus. This would bring her over to Ranelagh, where she would get a number 44 to Enniskerry. By now, Annie had the knack of Dublin transport.

She saw a number 18 at the terminus but was still about a hundred yards away when the bus began to leave. She ran towards it, trying to catch the driver’s attention. He spotted her, and slowed down to let her on. She paid the fare to bring her to Ranelagh. Within hours she would be abducted and murdered.

Annie McCarrick loved Ireland. By March 1993 she had spent many years travelling back and forth between Dublin and New York. She first arrived in Ireland for a week’s holiday at Christmas 1987, when she was twenty, as part of a group led by her cousin Danny Casey, who taught Irish studies at the State University of New York. She instantly fell in love with the country and the people. Her great-grandfather and grandmother on her mother’s side had left Ireland many decades previously. On her father’s side there were also strong links with Ireland. Annie grew up among many Irish-American influences on Long Island, New York. Two Irish people who were friends of the family lived with the McCarricks for a time, and many members of a local order of nuns who knew the McCarricks were originally from Ireland.

When Annie McCarrick arrived in Ireland for the first time she felt as if she was coming home. She lived in Ireland for three years while she studied at St Patrick’s Training College in Drumcondra, Dublin, and later at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. In between her studies in Ireland she returned to her home in New York in 1990 to continue her studies there for a year. But she missed Ireland, she had made so many friends. By Christmas 1992 she had decided that she wanted to return to Ireland. She discussed the matter with her parents, telling them she wanted to see once and for all if she wanted to make her life in Ireland, to see if she could settle here. They didn’t want to see their only child leave America again, but they knew Annie was restless and had her heart set on returning to Ireland. On 6 January 1993 they kissed their daughter goodbye for the last time. Annie stepped on board a plane at JFK airport and left for Dublin. They would never see their daughter