FRAGMENTS OF HUMAN remains have been found at a site which is being investigated by the group seeking to locate the bodies of ‘The Disappeared’.

The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) launched a search of a site in Annyalla Graveyard, Co Monaghan last year with the ambition to locate the remains of Joe Lynskey.

Lynskey is one of four of the remaining cases of The Disappeared, which refers to a group of eighteen people believed to have been abducted and murdered by the IRA mostly during the Troubles.

He was added to the list of the Disappeared in 2010 after the IRA took responsibility for his death and stated that he was killed and buried in an unmarked grave.

This evening, the Commission confirmed that fragments of remains have been found at the site and are to be sent for forensic testing. Investigators have been searching at a new location within the graveyard for some time.

It follows an announcement in March that remains which were exhumed from the graveyard last year did not belong to Joe Lynskey, following testing. The new site is not another family grave and is a small area located in the cemetery.

The State Pathologist has been notified of the most-recent discovery.

All interested parties, including the Lynskey family, have been informed. Former senior garda and lead investigator of the ICLVR Eamonn Henry said expectations have to be managed.

“The process of identification could take some time, and we will continue to offer the family what support we can,” he said this evening.

He added: “Regardless of the outcome, this work at Annyalla shows that where we have credible information, we will act on it.”

Lynskey was a former Cistercian monk from the Beechmount area of west Belfast. He went missing in 1972, over 50 years ago. 

Former lead investigator Geoff Knupfer holding a picture of Joe Lynskey at a previous search site. Alamy Alamy

Anyone with information is asked to come forward. Any and all information is treated with the strictest confidence by the Commission.

The public are invited to come forward and contact the Commission on +353 1 602 8655, secretary@iclvr.ie or ICLVR PO Box 10827 Dublin, Ireland. 

Four people’s remains – Lynskey, Columba McVeigh, Seamus Maguire and Robert Nairac – have still yet to be located. This week marks the 48th anniversary of Nairac’s murder and secret burial.

Joe Lynskey had been a member of the IRA, but fell foul of the organisation in the early 1970s and was abducted and murdered by the organisation.

His murder was featured heavily in a recent Disney-produce television series ‘Say Nothing’, about the activities of the IRA in Belfast during The Troubles.