EXHUMATION AT ANNYALLA CEMETERY IN SEARCH FOR JOE LYNSKEY
An exhumation has taken place at a cemetery in Annyalla in Co Monaghan as part of a search for the remains of one of the Disappeared, Joe Lynskey, who was abducted and murdered by the IRA in 1972. The exhumation occurred after the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) received information concerning suspicious historic activity during the 1970s at a grave in the cemetery. In a statement the Commission said both the time frame and the location coincide with the disappearance of Mr Lynskey in 1972. The ICLVR did not become aware that Mr Lynskey was one of the Disappeared until 2010. Following the exhumation there will be a formal process to establish the identity of all of the remains found in the grave.
The Disappeared are those who were abducted, murdered and secretly buried during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Jon Hill, the lead investigator with the ICLVR, said Mr Lynskey’s family were “cautiously optimistic”. “But you have to remember they have been down this road before,” he stated. “Sadly this happened back in 2010 when we were undertaking a search for Joe Lynskey and we actually recovered the remains of Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee. “They are cautious, as are we, and it is the right way to be, but of course they are hopeful.”
The exhumation at the Annyalla cemetery happened on Tuesday and continued throughout the day with a forensic anthropologist on behalf of the ICLVR. The ICLVR said the formal process to establish the identity of all of the remains found in the grave has begun. Mr Hill said that how long the process will take “really depends on what we have recovered and we won’t know for some days whilst that is examined by the anthropologist. “I will be guided by them and the scientists on how long it will take. “It will take as long as it needs to take.” A former Cistercian monk from the Beechmount area of west Belfast, Mr Lynskey later joined the IRA. He went missing in 1972, and it has been claimed he was executed and buried by the IRA. T
he latest search for his remains was in 2018. It ended without success. Last November his niece said that his body “needs to be brought home”. So far, the remains of 13 of the Disappeared have been recovered. The remaining four are Mr Lynskey, Columba McVeigh, Seamus Maguire and Robert Nairac. The disappearance of Mr Maguire was taken on as a new case by the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) in 2022. The ICLVR was established by the UK and Irish governments in 1999.
