News

Investigation into secret murder that led to search for remains

IN December 2009 the Irish News revealed that missing west Belfast man Joe Lynskey was in fact another Disappeared victim.

Following a lengthy investigation security correspondent Allison Morris found that the former IRA intelligence officer had been abducted in 1972, murdered and secretly buried by the IRA.

He had not been previously named on an IRA list of so-called Disappeared victims.

The article was the culmination of months of painstaking research but eventually former republicans, who had observed the code of 'omerta' for almost 40 years, began to reveal details of the events surrounding his disappearance.

The controversial circumstances surrounding his murder and clandestine burial were initially only known to a few members of the IRA.

A Monaghan man, who was a member of a small IRA unit guarding Mr Lynskey in the days leading up to his death, proved key in giving further details about the murder.

He claimed Mr Lynskey had been held in an IRA safe-house between Castleblayney and Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, some time in August 1972.

The victim was in the house for more than a week waiting for senior IRA members to arrive from north of the border to carry out an internal “court martial”.

Old Bailey bomber Dolours Price also contacted the Irish News to say she had collected Mr Lynskey from a house in west Belfast and drove him to Monaghan.

Joe Lynskey was the first person to be 'disappeared' by the IRA.

He had previously studied at Bethlehem Abbey in Portglenone, Co Antrim, in the early 1950s training to be a Cistercian monk.

Following the publication of the Irish News article the IRA was forced to issue a statement admitting their role in killing the west Belfast man.

Mr Lynskey's fate was sealed after he had a relationship with the wife of another IRA man.

Acting without the sanction of the organisation he ordered another IRA man to shoot his love rival.

The man survived the gun attack but confusion around who ordered the shooting further raised tensions between the then fledging Provisional and the Official IRA who are believed to have carried out the murder attempt.

In February 2010 the Independent Commission for the Location for Victims Remains (ICLVR) added him to the list of people they were looking for.

Former IRA members co-operated with the commission giving details of a site in Coghalstown, Co Meath where, after months of painstaking searches a body, believed to be Mr Lynskey's, was finally recovered yesterday.