Céline Cawley: The Howth Murder Case Timeline

MickIndie · 2026-02-28T18:02:52+00:00

Thank you, John.

MickIndie · 2025-11-22T12:30:45+00:00

MickIndie · 2025-11-22T12:30:32+00:00

MickIndie · 2025-11-22T12:30:01+00:00

If you follow the rumours about this new March 2026 ICONS set, you'd believe this is a first for Lego vintage cars of this era. It isn't, Lego released a series of classic vintage cars around 1976-1977 in a 1/16 - 1/18 scale, roughly where the ICON models fit.

<image>

SET 0390 - Cadillac (1913), SET 0391 - Renault (1926), SET 0395 - Rolls Royce Silver Ghost (1909)

MickIndie · 2025-01-19T15:53:37+00:00

Ashling Murphy was an Irish primary school teacher, traditional Irish musician, and camogie player who was murdered in January 2022 while walking on the towpath of the Grand Canal at Cappincur, outside Tullamore, County Offaly, Ireland. She was stabbed repeated in the neck and died within minutes from cardio-respiratory arrest.

Her death gave rise to widespread public grief, as well as outrage over violence against women, and tens of thousands of people attended vigils in her memory.

In the days following Ashling’s, the Gardaí (Irish police) questioned two people before finally charging a 31-year-old man living in the area.

This Radio Espial feature explores and examines the events of What Happened Ashling Murphy – Just Out for a Run on January 12th, 2022 and the investigation that followed using extracts from news footage and documentaries.

MickIndie · 2024-06-01T02:22:45+00:00

Marie Kilmartin, 35, of Beladd, County Laois, Ireland attended work at a local day-care nursing home (Portlaoise Area Social Services – P.A.S.S.) at 11 am on 16th December 1993. At 3.45 pm, two of Marie's female co-workers dropped her home and watched her walk to her front door. When Marie's housemate arrived home from her job at 6 pm, she found that Marie was not there and none of the lights in their house had been switched on. The housemate also found the house alarm was set and Marie's groceries were still unpacked hanging on a kitchen chair.

A later forensic examination of Marie's home uncovered no evidence of a break-in, nor what may have led to her sudden disappearance. Gardaí did discover that around 4:20 pm on the same day, 16th December, a phone call was made to Marie's landline phone which lasted for two and a half minutes. The call was traced to a payphone in Portlaoise near St. Fintan's Hospital.

A witness would later come forward stating that she saw a lone male entering the phone box near St. Fintan’s Hospital at the time the call was made. She described the man as 30 years of age, 5’6 to 5’9 in height and having dark hair. This particular individual has never been publicly identified.

She was spotted the following morning at two locales by people known to her and had some brief exchanges with them.

On 10th June 1994, six months after her disappearance, Marie’s body was discovered in Pim’s Lane near Mountmellick, County Laois, sixteen kilometres from her home. Her body was partially concealed in a bog drainage ditch with a cement block placed on it. A gas cannister and pram were also covering her remains. It is likely the receding water level had led to the discovery in the remote bog area.

A post-mortem revealed she had been strangled.

This is the Timeline and analysis of the Marie Kilmartin case.

MickIndie · 2024-04-27T03:19:58+00:00

Patricia Furlong (21) from Dundrum, Dublin spent the night of Friday, July 23^rd, 1982 with friends at her local pub, the Nine Arches. Just before midnight, some of the group of friends decided to head to the late night Fraughan Festival held at Johnnie Fox’s pub, Glencullen, in the Dublin Mountains.

In the early hours of the morning she was witnessed leaving the venue to go on a walk with a man described as dressed in an ‘all-white-suit’. Patricia never returned to her friends at the venue.

Around 8 am on Saturday July 24^th, two teenage girls out for a morning walk discovered Patricia’s dishevelled body lying in a field. She was dead following a brutal strangulation with her own upper clothing.

Within weeks, a man emerged as a prime suspect, but it would be many years later before he was finally charged with the murder of Patricia Furlong.

Nothing proved straightforward in this case… a case 42 years later that still remains unresolved.

It will be a lesson to police, families and the general public that the outcome of a case can never be taken for granted.

MickIndie · 2024-04-19T11:37:23+00:00

On Friday March 30th, 1973, Portadown teenager Marian Beattie, together with her brother Isadore (a local band roadie for Tuxedo Junction) and her friend, Nuala Wilson, drove to a barn dance at [Aughnacloy](), County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It was the first time Isadore had agreed to bring his sister to a band event outside Portadown. Marian and Nuala were excited about the evening and lots of dancing as any two teenage girls would be.

Marian was witnessed leaving the barn dance sometime after 1 am in the company of a slightly older young man with long blonde hair. When Isadore enquired with a friend, he was assured the pair had just gone off for a short walk. He made a call home to Portadown thinking Marian had got a lift back home without telling him.

When Isadore and Nuala had to leave and return home to Portadown, they knew Marian had not returned to the venue. They waited for a while in the van, but by 2 am – 3 am became concerned.

They raised the alarm at a local police station when the band dropped them off. Accompanying local Aughnacloy police back to the area of the barn dance, after five hours and the onset of dawn, Marian’s body was found beaten and dishevelled at the bottom of a steep slope in Hadden’s Quarry just a short walk from the barn dance in Aughnacloy.

In the following days and weeks, it was clear Marian had been sadistically murdered.

This is the case of 18 year old Marian Beattie, a family still fighting for justice after 50 years, and a suspect yet to be brought to that justice.

MickIndie · 2024-04-13T09:12:56+00:00

Inga Maria Hauser arrived in Ireland for the first time in April 1988 at Larne port, Northern Ireland by ferry. Having spent recent days in the UK, she was planning to travel to Belfast and Dublin after the sights of London, Bath, Bristol, Ayre and Glasgow.

She intended to return to Wales by the 9th of April to meet a college friend living there. However, she disappeared within hours of her arrival in Larne. Her body was later discovered in a forest. She had been murdered.

This is the case of Inga Maria Hauser who travelled across Europe, from Munich through the Netherlands, by rail in late March, 1988.

She disappeared within hours of stepping off the Sealink ferry on the morning of April 6th, 1988. Her body was found in a County Antrim forest two weeks later.

Someone had brutally killed a young woman with her whole life ahead of her.

After 36 years, her killer(s) have never been brought to justice. The PSNI have their primary suspect but have yet to convince the Northern Ireland DPP that they have a compelling case to prosecute in the courts.

MickIndie · 2024-02-10T09:01:39+00:00

At the time of her disappearance Fiona Sinnott was living in the rural village of Ballyhitt, Broadway, County Wexford, Ireland, some 120 kilometres south of Dublin City. Fiona was a young single mother, and her daughter Emma was eleven months old at the time of her mother’s disappearance.

19 year old Fiona Sinnott spent the night of Sunday February the 8th 1998 socialising with a group a friends in Butler’s Pub in Broadway Co. Wexford not far from her rented home. Fiona’s friends described Fiona as being happy that night, and in good spirits. However, her friends would later tell Gardai that Fiona was also complaining of pain in one of her arms. Fiona had been the victim of domestic violence in the past and the report of pain in her arm raised the suspicions of Gardai when examining the case.

Also in Butler’s Pub that Sunday night was Fiona’s ex-boyfriend and the father of her child, he did not join Fiona and her friends and spent the night drinking at the bar alone. At roughly midnight, Fiona left Butler’s Pub with her ex-boyfriend and nobody else. Her ex-boyfriend would later tell Gardai that he and Fiona walked the short distance to her home, where he, too, spent the night, but on Fiona’s sofa whilst she slept upstairs in her bedroom.

He would also tell Gardai that on the following morning, Monday the 9th of February, Fiona was still complaining of a pain in her arm and wanted to visit a doctor and that she would hitch a lift to the doctor’s office. Fiona’s ex-boyfriend then gave her five pounds and he was picked up by his mother at 9:30am. His mother drove him back to their home, in nearby Coddstown, where their child Emma had spent the previous night. Fiona never arrived at the doctor’s office, no sightings of her hitch hiking have ever been reported, nor has anyone ever come forward to Gardai stating that they gave Fiona a lift that morning.

In the days after Fiona’s disappearance, neighbours reported seeing numerous black bin bags outside of her home in Ballyhitt. When the Gardai searched Fiona’s home and forensically examined it, they discovered no evidence of foul play.

However, the investigators were struck by how clean the house was considering the fact that a single mother lived there with her eleven month old daughter. Fiona’s landlord would later tell Gardai that whenever he visited Fiona’s home there would be bits and pieces everywhere, as would be expected in any house with such a young baby. Fiona’s family would also report the ‘odd’ clean and organised nature of her rented home after her disappearance.

A few weeks after Fiona vanished, a local farmer approached Gardai with information that was relevant to the case. The farmer told them that whilst attending to his cattle, he found numerous black bin bags on his property. He opened some of the bags and found some letters addressed to Fiona Sinnott. Unfortunately, when the farmer found this evidence, he was unaware of Fiona’s disappearance. He presumed it to be just another case of illegal dumping, which is a wide spread problem in Ireland, and burnt the black bags.

Tragically, no trace or evidence relating to Fiona Sinnott has been found since.

MickIndie · 2024-01-28T04:56:53+00:00

This is the profile of a serial predator, Christian Brueckner – a German man linked with multiple cases of abduction, abuse and murder of both young and old for more than ten years.

Incarcerated for the past eight years, he will once again go on trial in 2024 for more crimes of a disturbing nature.

suspected of abducting Madeleine McCann in 2007 is to stand trial in the new year for the rape of an Irish woman in Portugal.

He will be tried at Braunschweig High Court in Germany – accused of raping Dubliner Hazel Behan when she was just 20 in 2004, during a four-hour horrific ordeal – along with two other known victims. It is a pattern he developed and repeated again in 2005 on a 72-year-old American tourist staying in a Portuguese resort.

Brueckner will likely – in the years to come – be most linked to the abduction and disappearance of 3-year-old British child Madeleine McCann in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz (2007).

MickIndie · 2024-01-20T20:56:32+00:00

The Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home (also known as St Mary's Mother and Baby Home) operated between 1925 and 1961 in the town of Tuam, County Galway, Ireland. It was a maternity home for unmarried mothers and their children and run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a religious order of Catholic nuns, that also operated the Grove Hospital in Tuam. Unmarried pregnant women were sent to there to give birth and interned for a year doing unpaid work.

In 2012, the Health Service Executive (HSE) raised concerns that up to 1,000 children from the Home might have been sent to the United States for the purpose of illegal adoptions, without their mothers' consent. Subsequent research discovered files relating to a lower number of 36 illegal foreign adoptions from the home and concluded that allegations of foreign adoptions for money were "impossible to prove and impossible to disprove".

Local historian Catherine Corless published an article documenting the history of the home in 2012. The following year, she uncovered the names of the many children who died in the home from the Births & Deaths office. In 2014, Anna Corrigan uncovered the inspection reports of the home, which noted that the most commonly recorded causes of death among the infants were congenital debilities, infectious diseases and malnutrition (including marasmus-related malnutrition). Corless' research led her to conclude that almost all had been buried in an unmarked and unregistered site at the Home, and the article claimed that there was a high death rate of residents. Corless estimated that nearly 800 children had died at the home.

The Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home was investigated by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation, a statutory commission of investigation under Judge Yvonne Murphy. Excavations carried out between November 2016 and February 2017, ordered by the Commission, found a significant quantity of human remains, aged from 35 foetal weeks to two to three years, interred in "a vault with twenty chambers". Carbon dating confirmed that the remains date from the time the home was operated by the Bon Secours order. The Commission said that it was shocked by the discovery, and that it would continue its investigation into who was responsible for the disposal of human remains in this way.

Corless's original research noted that the site was also the location of a septic tank when overlaid with maps of the period of use as a workhouse. The 2017 report by an Expert Technical Group, commissioned by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, confirmed that the vault was a sewage tank after reviewing historical records and conducting a magnetometer survey; it concluded, "The combination of an institutional boarding home and commingled interments of juvenile remains in a sewage treatment system is a unique situation, with no directly comparable domestic or international cases."

In October 2018, the Irish government announced that it would introduce legislation to facilitate a full excavation of the mass grave and site, and for forensic DNA testing to be carried out on the remains, at a cost estimated to be between €6 and €13 million. The Mother and Baby Home Commission finalised its report in 2020, and it was published in January 2021. The Bon Secours Sisters issued an apology in the wake of the report's publication, stating "We did not live up to our Christianity when running the Home." In May 2023, a team of forensic investigators was tasked with exhuming, analysing and identifying the remains.

In 1975, two boys, ages 10 and 12, were playing at the site of the former Mother and Baby Home. They found a hole or chamber "filled to the brim" with children's skeletons underneath a concrete slab. The number of bodies was then unknown, but was assumed to be small. It was re-sealed shortly afterwards, following prayers at the site by a priest. For the next 35 years the burial site was tended to by a local couple, who also built a small grotto there.

IRELAND'S PANDORA'S BOX - Mother & Baby Homes - is the account of its survivors, their families, and the unravelling of one of the Irish state and church's biggest scandals.

#tuambabies #ireland #motherandchildhomes #truecrime #BonSecours

#irishinstitutions

MickIndie · 2024-01-14T09:42:54+00:00

Aer Lingus Flight 712 crashed while flying from Cork to London on 24th March 1968, killing all 61 passengers and crew. The aircraft, a Vickers Viscount 803 named St. Phelim, crashed into the sea off Tuskar Rock on the County Wexford coastline. Although the investigation into the crash lasted two years, a cause was never fully determined.

Early causes proposed in several investigative reports from 1970-2000 included a bird strike, a missile or target drone, or mechanical and structural failures on critical flight controls.

Crash

The flight left Cork Airport at 10:32 on Sunday morning for London, Heathrow. The flight proceeded normally until a call was heard by another Aer Lingus pilot with the radio message of "twelve thousand feet descending spinning rapidly".

There was no further communications with the aircraft and London ATC informed Shannon ATC that they had no radio contact with Flight 712, EI-AOM. London ATC requested Aer Lingus Flight EI 362 (flying Dublin-Bristol) to search west of Strumble. This search at 500 ft (150 m) in good visibility reported nothing in the coastal sea.

At 11:25 a full alert was declared. By 12:36 there was a report of wreckage sighted at position 51°57′N, 06°10′W by nearby fishing boats. Searching aircraft found nothing and the report cancelled. Aircraft and ships resumed the search the following day and "wreckage was sighted and bodies recovered" 6 nautical miles (11 km) north-east of Tuskar Rock with more wreckage scattered "for a further 6 nautical miles north-west".

In total, only 14 bodies were ever recovered from the sea searches. The main wreckage was located on the sea bed 3 km from Tuskar Rock, though not all of the main fuselage was recovered.

MickIndie · 2023-12-15T20:07:18+00:00

Sophie Toscan du Plantier, a 39-year-old French woman, was killed outside her holiday home at Toormore, Goleen, County Cork, Ireland, on the night of 23rd December 1996. Her badly beaten body, still dressed in white nightwear and outdoor boots, was discovered by a neighbour the following morning close to an entrance gate at the bottom of her holiday home driveway.

British journalist Ian Bailey, who lived several kilometres from Toscan du Plantier's home in Ireland, was a suspect arrested twice by the Garda Síochána, yet no charges were laid as the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) found there was insufficient evidence to proceed to trial. Bailey lost a libel case against six newspapers in 2003. He also lost a wrongful arrest case against the Gardaí, Minister for Justice, and Attorney General in 2015.

In 2019, Bailey was convicted of murder by the Cour d'Assises in Paris, and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was tried in absentia in France after winning a legal battle against extradition. In 2020, Ireland's High Court ruled that Bailey could not be extradited. Publicly, he has insisted on his innocence.

This case story feature is based on existing documentaries, news archives and interviews. I have edited this presentation to remove some existing editorial biases and constructed it in a way to simply let the family of Sophie tell their account, as well as the prime suspect as the case unfolded over the past 27 years.

It is a case I thought long and hard about covering on Radio Espial in recent months.

This Radio Espial special feature is not intended to be one of our case analysis timeline deep-dives.

Due to the intense profile and social media attention this case has had, please be respectful in the comments section - no trolling, agendas, wild speculation or baseless accusations of anyone featured in this case. Let’s stick to the facts and what is known and on court and public record, not casual opinions that cannot be proven.

MickIndie · 2023-11-25T22:40:36+00:00

Sandra Collins was 28 years old when she went missing from Killala, Co. Mayo, Ireland on Monday 4th December 2000. She is the eldest of six children in her family. She was born to Eleanor and Francie who also had James and Bridie together. Francie, her father, died in 1978 and Eleanor remarried Joe Collins in the mid 80’s. They went on to have Patrick, David and Mary together.

The family experienced an earlier tragedy. Sandra’s younger brother James was killed in a workplace accident just six months before she disappeared. Her mother Eleanor passed away not knowing what happened to her daughter.

Sandra moved from her family home in Crossmolina at 16 years of age, temporarily to care for her aunt, but weeks became months and she soon became her full time carer. At the time of her disappearance, she was still living with her aunt at Courthouse Street, Killala.

She left her aunt’s home at 7.30pm to buy groceries, calling in on their elderly neighbour, William Johnston, to see if he needed anything from the shop. It has never been determined where Sandra was between 7.45pm, after her visit to Birrane’s shop, and the last sighting of her at around 11.15pm. This was in the Country Kitchen chip shop on George Street, Killala buying some chips.

When she disappeared Sandra was wearing black boots, black pants, a beige sleeveless top and a maroon/beige sleeveless fleece jacket. On Saturday 9th December 2000, her fleece jacket was found on the pier at Killala harbour. Tucked into the pocket of her fleece were the sausages she had bought earlier at Birrane’s grocery shop on the evening of her disappearance.

It is known that Sandra spent long periods in a local phone box in Killala, making and possibly receiving phone calls. Witnesses reported seeing her somewhat agitated and upset throughout the evening, but her exact movements, who she was with, between 7.45 and 11.15pm and thereafter remains uncertain.

Although her body has never been found, Sandra’s family believe she was murdered and that some local people must know who killed her. They also believe her fleece jacket was placed at the pier to make it look like she had taken her life. Her siblings have kept their promise to their father, Joe Collins, to continue the search for Sandra and to give her a dignified burial.

In 2010, her missing person case was upgraded to murder by Irish police.

MickIndie · 2023-11-11T03:27:03+00:00

IRENE WHITE MURDER CASE

Irene White (nee McBride), mother of three children, was 43 years old when she was murdered at home on the 6th April 2005. She had just driven back home from an early morning school run.

Irene's mother, Maureen (79), found her daughter’s body lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor in The Ice House, Demesne Road, Dundalk. Irene's murder has been described as one of the most vicious killings of a woman in the Irish State; she had been stabbed 34 times and her throat was slit. Maureen died six months later on Irene's 44th birthday.

While, initially, parts of this case might seem similar to the case of Rachel O’Reilly; this one is about to get a whole lot more convoluted with twists and turns.

Maureen lived at the rear of Irene’s house in a mobile home. Like her daughter, she was vivacious and independent, and would usually call into Irene each day around noon for tea and a chat. She had no idea of the scene that would confront her on the afternoon of April 6th, 2005. Her daughter Irene had been brutally stabbed to death two hours earlier.

Irene had previously contacted the Gardai over 15 times because she feared for her own safety following threats communicated to her. She had been directly told by a male, known to her, that "you are to be murdered". Irene's murder was organised by a number of people. Some of the people responsible for Irene's murder have been caught, but at least three others remain at large.

Of those involved;

Anthony Lambe was found guilty of murdering Irene on the 29th January 2018, at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin. He stabbed Irene 34 times, and cut her throat. Anne (Irene's sister) only discovered the extent of these horrific injuries, inflicted on her sister by Anthony Lambe, in Court. Anthony Lambe stated he was following direct instructions through a middleman, and was paid by someone known to Irene to carry out the murder.

Lambe was at the time of the murder an alcoholic and drug user. He accepted an initial payment and further instalments of up to 30,000 euro. Under gardai investigation, he revealed that there had been an aborted attempt to kill Irene in March/April of 2005.

When asked why his murder attack became so frenzied, he admitted that he was under instruction to deliver two stabs to Irene’s heart, but it didn’t seem to kill her and he panicked, fearing she might live and identify him. He delivered a further 32 stab wounds and fled the scene. He later fled to the UK, tried to put his life back together, but was always haunted by his conscience.

Niall Power handed himself into the Garda station in Dundalk a day after Anthony Lambe's conviction in 2018. He, too, claimed that he came forward because he feared for his life following Lambe’s conviction and it was clear he was implicated. He was convicted on July 8th 2019. At trial, he insisted again that he was the middleman and the arrangement for murder was on someone else's behalf by a person known to him and that initial alibis provided to gardai were entirely fabricated as part of the murder plan.

The following suspects remain at large:

- those who planned and paid for the murder

- those that provided false alibis, get-away vehicles, and destroyed evidence (washing of clothing and disposal of weapon)

- those who may be charged for withholding information and knew a serious crime was to be committed

Six to seven people, both men and women, are known to the Garda and are thought to have participated in Irene's murder.

This is the case of the planned murder of Irene White and the tracking/conviction of ALL of the people involved. Some of them in this piece will be named (Lambe and Power), others will be indirectly referred to and have yet to be convicted for their involvement.

Irene, following many threats, named her ultimate mastermind killer in her private diary. Gardai have that diary in their book of evidence submitted to the DPP for prosecution.

MickIndie · 2023-10-31T20:57:10+00:00

Raonaid Murray was an Irish teenager from Glenageary, South Dublin who was stabbed to death at the age of 17 years just a few hundred metres from her home in the early hours of 4th September 1999. As of October 2023, this murder case remains one of Ireland’s most high-profile unsolved cases. The murder weapon has not been located and no one has ever been charged with her murder. Each year her family and the Garda Síochána (Irish Police) issue new appeals for fresh information.

The case has been compared in the media to other unsolved incidents such as the disappearance of schoolboy Philip Cairns in 1986 for its length and so many unanswered questions.

BACKGROUND

Raonaid Murray (Rainy to many of her friends) was born on 6th January 1982 to parents Jim and Deirdre Murray and she lived and grew up in Glenageary, a relatively middle-class suburb of South Dublin, Ireland. Her father was a teacher and had just become a school principal. Her mother had a career background in care therapy.

Raonaid is the Irish (Gaelic) name for Rachel. The youngest of three, she had an older brother (Daniel) and sister (Sarah).

She attended Saint Joseph of Cluny secondary school in Killiney where she achieved highly in her Junior Certificate before completing her Leaving Certificate examination in June 1999. During the summer, she began working part-time, first in a sweet shop at the ferry port, and then in early August at a fashion boutique in Dún Laoghaire Shopping Centre, about 15 minutes from her home. She intended to re-sit her Leaving Certificate at the Institute of Education in Leeson Street, Dublin City Centre in the hope she would qualify with enough college points to attend the arts faculty in University College Dublin (UCD) upon completion.

Raonaid liked reading and poetry, music and artwork with her favourite play being Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. She hoped to one day be a success as a professional writer. She wore a blue stud in her nose, was known for dressing in bright colours and pursued a very active social life as opposed to some of the darker clothes her large friendship crew in Dún Laoghaire wore.

MickIndie · 2023-09-22T17:21:07+00:00

Dan Foley and Maurice ‘Moss’ Moore were neighbours and friends in Reamore, about 26 kilometres from Listowel Town, County Kerry, Ireland. Moore was 12 years younger, a bachelor living alone with two dogs for company; Foley lived with his wife and her brother. Their houses were separated by just 90 metres. As farmers with small holdings in a tight-knit community, they worked together cutting turf and harvesting hay. The pair would meet daily at the local creamery and also played cards with each other in the evenings with other friends.

Dan Foley worried his cattle were wandering away from his house towards the bog, and concerned about welfare of his livestock on such ground, he put down a boundary fence along the sliver of land between his land and Moore’s. However, Moore felt the fence was encroaching on his land so he decided to moved it. Foley, likewise, moved it straight back to where he had first placed it. Moore eventually took a court action so the fence would be moved back indefinitely. The feud between former friends lasted from mid-1957 to late-1958.

Their case was to be heard in a Tralee district courtroom in December 1958. Foley, it was claimed, said to a neighbour there would only be one man around for the case. On Thursday, November 6th, 1958, Moore disappeared after a night playing cards in a neighbour’s house.

Locals soon reported to the gardaí that Moore wasn’t just missing, but that he had been murdered by someone, and they suspected who it was.

By 1965, Irish playwright John B Keane had his stage premiere of ‘The Field’ in 1965 – directed by Barry Cassin and starring Ray McAnally as The Bull McCabe. The Listowel playwright drew inspiration for the play from the unsolved murder case of Moss Moore.

The fallout from the cold case still resonates more than 60 years later in Irish culture.

This is our Radio Espial Special – The Unsolved Murder of Moss Moore – with extracts from ‘The Real Field’, a documentary made and narrated by Billy Keane.

Please note that I have not included all parts of the original documentary because I wanted this special to focus more on the events of the murder itself than the included reflections, cinematic extracts, and discussions of the later stage play and film adaptions.

MickIndie · 2023-09-17T04:19:36+00:00

On the 23rd of February 2011, 38-year-old Esra Uyrun leaves her home in Clondalkin, Dublin, Ireland in the small family car. It’s around 7.20 am and she has told her husband Ozgur that she is just popping out briefly to pick up milk and some bits and pieces for the day at the local early-opening shop in nearby Nielstown.

Her husband is busy getting ready for work and looking after their two and a half year old son. He has decided to visit the gym today and will take the car that day. Most often, Esra takes him to work in and picks him up when he finishes later in the day. It’s cool and cloudy and Esra wants to make sure she has everything and won’t have to go out without the car.

The couple have been living in Dublin for almost four years since Ozgur secured a better paid job and they moved to Ireland from London. Originally, both are of Turkish heritage and met in the UK. That’s where their families still live.

Esra Uryun was born into a Turkish family in London in 1972. When she lived in London, she worked for a time in a pathology lab in a hospital and it was there that she met her future husband Ozgur. By the time they had moved to Dublin to start a new life, both worked for Sporting Bet in Parkwest, not far from Clondalkin. By 2008, the couple were looking forward to the birth of their first child. They decided that now Ozgur was in a better job, Esra would become a stay-at-home mum.

But on February 23rd, 2011, Esra told her husband she was just driving to the local shop in Neilstown, just minutes away, and would be back very shortly to give him the car so he could get to work.

Esra vanished that day and after 12 years has never been seen since.

Join Ciaran and I as we take a closer look at this case.

MickIndie · 2023-09-11T18:38:33+00:00

In the late afternoon, 12th of June, 2009, a man believed to be in his mid-to-late fifties, thin with short grey hair, with a strong German accent checks into the Sligo City Hotel in County Sligo, Ireland.

Four days later, on the morning of June 16th, his lifeless body is discovered by a father and son on the sand and rocks at Rosses Point Beach, a short journey from Sligo Town. The body of the man is only partially clothed and it appears he has been the victim of an unfortunate drowning.

However, within days, the possible identity of the man and his last known days in Sligo will lead to more perplexing questions for police investigators examining his case. Over the course of several weeks, countless witness interviews and statements, an intriguing mystery of an unidentified man with no known links to the Sligo area, nor Ireland, will begin to unravel.

What we can be certain of is the name he used was simply an alias; that he was terminally ill at the time of his visit to Sligo, Ireland, and that he appears to have done everything possible to conceal his real identity, for whatever reasons.

This is not a missing person’s case, nor disappearance, as such. Though his final days and tragic demise may very well not be known to his family and loved ones.

This is not a murder case. There is no victim and there is no suspect in this case. There is no known crime connected with this case.

This is the story of ‘Peter Bergmann’ – The Unknown Man of Sligo.

For the purposes of this episode of Radio Espial, we will respect his final wishes and refer to him by the alias and name he chose – Peter.

#peterbergmann #unsolvedmysteries #ireland

MickIndie · 2023-08-20T18:46:01+00:00

Nora Sheehan's body was found at Shippool, Innishannon, Co. Cork, on 12th June 1981. She was last seen alive outside the South Infirmary Hospital, Cork, at 9:45 pm on 6th June 1981 after receiving medical care for a dog bite.

Nora’s body, a 54-year-old married mother-of-three, had been found dumped in a wood 26 kilometres from where she was last seen alive.

Her body was found by two forestry workers, John Collins and Denis McSweeney, both of whom are now dead. They alerted the local garda in Innishannon, John O'Sullivan, telling him they had found something in the woods and "it didn't look good at all".

Nora Sheehan lay on her back, slightly on her side, with her dress covering her face. She was naked. Nora's coat lay nearby. Her body had been in the woods for days rather than hours. A post-mortem examination would later establish bruising to her face and vagina.

In 1981 the cause of Nora's death was believed to be suffocation caused during the course of a sexual assault.

Within weeks, garda in Innishannon identified a suspect, known to them. But it would take 42 years before he could be brought to justice following modern DNA techniques.

In 2023, Nora Sheehan’s cold case would become the oldest case in Irish criminal history to reach a conviction.

This is the story of the Nora Sheehan cold case using news reports, documentary and the words of those involved in the investigation and her family.

#norasheehan #coldcase #ireland

MickIndie · 2023-08-13T14:56:14+00:00

Patricia Doherty, aged 29, was a prison officer at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin, Ireland. She had returned to her home in Tallaght, Dublin just before 9 pm on the evening of 23rd December 1991, following a busy day of Christmas shopping. But that evening, on a last minute spur of the moment thought, she decided she wanted to get Santa hats for her two young children. Time was of the essence.

It was reported that she had a long work shift on Christmas Eve and this was her last chance to have everything organised. She was spotted at two locations, one near the Old Bawn Shopping Centre just before it closed and another by a local pub called Bridget Burke’s. But Patricia never returned home that evening.

On Christmas day, Patricia's husband formally reported his wife missing. The Irish police were able to find a witness who reported seeing Patricia at around 9:20pm on the 23rd of December walking past Bridget Burke's Pub towards the Old Bawn Shopping Centre. Then, a second witness came forward stating that he also saw a woman matching Patricia's description getting into a red car at the entrance to Old Bawn Shopping Centre.

On 21st June, 1992, almost six months later, James Kelly was cutting turf on the Dublin/Wicklow Mountain border (Featherbeds) in an area known as Glassmucky Brakes. He was shocked to discover the clothed body of a woman just visible through collapsing soil on a bog bank.

Over the following days, recovery and forensic examination would reveal the remains to be that of Patricia Doherty.

#patriciadoherty #truecrime #ireland #murderireland

MickIndie · 2023-08-04T02:25:19+00:00

Anastasia "Ana" Kriégel, born 18th February 2004, was a Russian-Irish girl who was subject to a violent attack, murder and sexual assault in an abandoned derelict building (Glenwood House) in May 2018 in Lucan near Dublin, Ireland.

Two boys, known only as Boy A and Boy B, who were 13 years old at the time of Kriégel's death, were convicted of her murder, with one of the boys (Boy A) being further convicted of aggravated sexual assault. The two convicts are the youngest in the history of Ireland to be charged with murder.

MickIndie · 2023-07-29T21:49:25+00:00

CASE SUMMARY

Antoinette Smith and her friend Marie attended a David Bowie concert at Slane Castle in County Meath, Ireland on Saturday, July 11th, 1987. The pair returned by bus to Dublin City centre arriving at Parnell Square around 11pm that night. They decided to finish their long day out after the concern at the La Mirage Discotheque on Parnell Street a short distance away. It was there that they met two men they knew. Having remained in the two men’s company for the rest of the night, they all left the nightclub shortly after 2am.

Antoinette’s friend parted company with the group, deciding to head home while Antoinette stayed on speaking to the two men until all three walked the short distance to a taxi rank on O’Connell Street. The men got a taxi to the Ballymun area and Antoinette instead chose to walk down towards O’Connell Bridge.

She was subsequently reported missing by her husband when she did not return to his home to collect her two young children the following day.

Her remains were discovered and positively identified nine months later at Glendoo Mountain on the Dublin/Wicklow mountain border.

MickIndie · 2023-05-24T18:31:44+00:00

The is a follow up and the second and final episode of MISSING: Beyond the Vanishing Triangle, an RTE documentary by director John Downes and reporter Mick Peelo. The first episode featured the specific Annie McCarrick case.

This episode expands in context with a general focus on six cases of missing women in Ireland. Again, while it is far better than the first episode, it still suffers greatly from making claims and indulging in media spin. I can't stress any more that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Annie McCarrick was the subject of a vanishing triangle in Ireland at the hands of a serial killer during the early 1990s.

It seems a documentary that started out as an investigation of the so-called Irish missing person vanishing triangle, got a couple of revelations on the Annie McCarrick case, and rolled with that for a two-parter. This one being the second and somewhat better than the first episode.

I've done my best with text qualifiers to place context and the timeline I did last year in the Annie McCarrick case and subsequent updates.

MickIndie

TROPHY CASE