The agency that exhumed human remains from a grave in Annyalla Cemetery says establishing whether or not they are those of so-called Disappeared Joe Lynskey "may take some time". The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains (ICLVR) say they carried out the exhumation of a grave in Annyalla following receipt of information about suspicious activity in the graveyard around the time of Joe Lynskey's disappearance in the 1970s.
Joe Lynskey was a Cistercian monk from Belfast who went missing in 1972 but the ICLVR did not include him on the list of the so-called "Disappeared" until 2010. There now follows a formal process to identify the remains exhumed in Anyalla, which, the ICLVR says "may take some time."
On the basis of information they received about Joe Lynskey, ICLVR searches conducted in Co. Meath in 2015 during which the remains of two other Disappeared were discovered. The last search for Joe Lynskey was conducted in 2018. The Disappeared are a list of 16 murdered people secretly buried. Four of The Disappeared have never been found. They are Joe Lynskey, Columba McVeigh, Seamus Maguire and Robert Nairac. Previous searches for 19-yr-old Columba McVeigh from Tyrone have been conducted in Monaghan without success.
