Carna Co Galway

Anti Anorak

A very chilling story in yesterday's Irish Times which has gotten very little media attention, in June 1985 a 33 year old mother of 7 disappeared from a house party in Carna Co Galway, however she wasn't reported missing until 7 days later and no real investigation was made into her disappearance until this year. Smells like a cover up within an insular community.

irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/a-30-year-old-mystery-in-carna-holds-on-to-its-secrets-1.2420584

KERSPLAT!

Can you fire up a link to the story?

Anti Anorak

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

Can you fire up a link to the story?

irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/a-30-year-old-mystery-in-carna-holds-on-to-its-secrets-1.2420584

Buona Fortuna

Quite shocking

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/a-30-year-old-mystery-in-carna-holds-on-to-its-secrets-1.2420584

cnocbui

Not terribly hard to come up with a theory by reading between the lines of that account.

Slightly more difficult to understand the apparent lack of Gardai response. Of course if she had been French....

Lack of Gardaí response is pretty normal in these places.

Anti Anorak

Deleted User wrote: »

Lack of Gardaí response is pretty normal in these places.

If it was 1935 I could understand but 1985 wasn't that long ago.

Galwayguy35

There must have been no mention of it at all in the news at the time, I never remember hearing anything at all about it.

Although it doesn't say it straight out in the article what happened it's kinda obvious what is being hinted at.

Fleawuss

Anti Anorak wrote: »

If it was 1935 I could understand but 1985 wasn't that long ago.

It's a bit like dog years compared to human years. In parts of Ireland it's still 1735 let alone 1935.

pmasterson95

Story is well known in Galway.

john.han

Deleted User wrote: »

Lack of Gardaí response is pretty normal in these places.

Less to do with "these places" and more to do with the presence of two off duty Gardai at the party at which she was last seen I'd suggest.

Orange Pants

Rural Ireland was such a bleak place back then, The Ann Lovett tragedy would have been around then as well.

marklazarcovic

lived in galway last 40 years and never heard this story

somefeen

Carna is still a bit of wild place. The people that know what happened are probably still there.
Gairda station got petrol bombed there to a few years back. All the locals know who did it

Orange Pants

somefeen wrote: »

Carna is still a bit of wild place. The people that know what happened are probably still there.
Gairda station got petrol bombed there to a few years back. All the locals know who did it

A Sargents uniform went missing from the same station a few weeks before it was burned down.

William Murphy Smith

This cover-up will feature on Prime Time tonight @ 9.30pm. This first time it has ever been covered on television

Ipso

Tis a grand wee country.

etselbbuns

somefeen wrote: »

Carna is still a bit of wild place. The people that know what happened are probably still there.
Gairda station got petrol bombed there to a few years back. All the locals know who did it

Drugs packages regularly floating undetected from the magic sea to shore
http://connachttribune.ie/no-arrests-after-70-thousand-euro-worth-of-cocaine-is-washed-up-on-ballyconneely-beach-090/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ireland-used-as-drugs-gateway-to-britain-1581182.html

Rumpy Pumpy

Connies are extremely strange and superstitious people.

etselbbuns

Of course our current garda commissioner is from the area too ...

mahamageehad

Crazy story, my first time hearing it! That her sibling was told it was a "domestic affair" and the husband never referred to her again sounds ominous, but that could well just be the author injecting in some drama. I hope they find out what happened to her.

topcat72

Rumpy Pumpy wrote: »

Connies are extremely strange and superstitious people.

Amadán.

Arsemageddon

etselbbuns wrote: »

Drugs packages regularly floating undetected from the magic sea to shore
http://connachttribune.ie/no-arrests-after-70-thousand-euro-worth-of-cocaine-is-washed-up-on-ballyconneely-beach-090/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ireland-used-as-drugs-gateway-to-britain-1581182.html

The second story you linked to is
(a) 22 years old
(b) Refers to a drug seizure in Kilkenny
(c) Was caused by a Garda Intelligence operation that went wrong

What either story you have linked has to do with the presumed murder of the woman in Carna is beyond me.

mahamageehad

mahamageehad wrote: »

Crazy story, my first time hearing it! That her sibling was told it was a "domestic affair" and the husband never referred to her again sounds ominous, but that could well just be the author injecting in some drama. I hope they find out what happened to her.

The never referring to her again thing is strange. I mean...how would they know? It can hardly be asserted as a fact in the way that article suggests.

mrsdewinter

This Prime Time makes for desperately sad viewing.

tomwaterford

Something seriously fishy going on there

branie2

Very sad story

Ipso

For those of us who can't see it, could someone give a run down.

mrsdewinter

Ipso wrote: »

For those of us who can't see it, could someone give a run down.

To follow on from the Irish Times' stories linked above, Prime Time interviewed the daughters and brother of the missing woman. One of the daughters spoke about the night her mother disappeared in 1985. There was a bit of a party in the house (really, just tea and sandwiches after the pub), and mother Barbara brought a female friend into the girls' room to 'show' her the new baby, a 9-month-old daughter. The older girls remember their mother cooing over the baby. Then, very early the following day, one of the daughters happened to get out of bed. She found her mother asleep on a settee and so she brought her a pillow and blanket, to make her more comfortable. That was the last time she saw her mother. It was desperately sad.
The daughters noted that their father did a great job bringing them up, and would get upset at Christmastime and around the time of his wife's birthday.
Primetime also noted that a man who lived nearby/in Connemara was later charged with a sex offence against a woman.
One garda who was interviewed (who had no involvement in the original case) said there was little point judging the 1985 investigation by today's standards. The programme noted that the 1980s investigation was conducted in English, and raised the possibility that, given the lingua franca in the area was Gaeilge, something may have been lost in translation.
I'd recommend looking it up on the Player, if you can.

Ipso

mrsdewinter wrote: »

To follow on from the Irish Times' stories linked above, Prime Time interviewed the daughters and brother of the missing woman. One of the daughters spoke about the night her mother disappeared in 1985. There was a bit of a party in the house (really, just tea and sandwiches after the pub), and mother Barbara brought a female friend into the girls' room to 'show' her the new baby, a 9-month-old daughter. The older girls remember their mother cooing over the baby. Then, very early the following day, one of the daughters happened to get out of bed. She found her mother asleep on a settee and so she brought her a pillow and blanket, to make her more comfortable. That was the last time she saw her mother. It was desperately sad.
The daughters noted that their father did a great job bringing them up, and would get upset at Christmastime and around the time of his wife's birthday.
Primetime also noted that a man who lived nearby/in Connemara was later charged with a sex offence against a woman.
One garda who was interviewed (who had no involvement in the original case) said there was little point judging the 1985 investigation by today's standards. The programme noted that the 1980s investigation was conducted in English, and raised the possibility that, given the lingua franca in the area was Gaeilge, something may have been lost in translation.
I'd recommend looking it up on the Player, if you can.

Thanks. I'll try to watch it. The bit I bolded seems odd.

mynamejeff

etselbbuns wrote: »

Of course our current garda commissioner is from the area too ...

do you think he might be a suspect ?

tomwaterford

mynamejeff wrote: »

do you think she might be a suspect ?

I think the person the daughter wanted the gaurds to search their garden with the dogs is probably a bigger suspect?

fryup

lots of stories of people (adults & children) going missing in rural ireland over the years, with investigating gardai coming up against a brick wall as communities close in, in a clanish/tribalistic type of way

don't be tellin

Ipso

fryup wrote: »

lots of stories of people (adults & children) going missing in rural ireland over the years, with investigating gardai coming up against a brick wall as communities close in, in a clanish/tribalistic type of way

don't be tellin

Irish society had a dark underbelly, when people complain about the church and the impact it had on society sometimes I wonder about the effect society had on the church.

Huexotzingo

fryup wrote: »

lots of stories of people (adults & children) going missing in rural ireland over the years, with investigating gardai coming up against a brick wall as communities close in, in a clanish/tribalistic type of way

don't be tellin

Any examples?

branie2

It's like something out of The Field

fryup

Huexotzingo wrote: »

Any examples?

mary boyle in donegal

Bernadette Connolly in sligo

tomwaterford

fryup wrote: »

mary boyle in donegal

Bernadette Connolly in sligo

Missing postman waterford....still not talked about!

(Also implications of the gaurds involved there)

Ipso

Father Niall Molloy, although our betters seem to be involved in that.

retro:electro

Is it just me or were they kind of alluding to something/someone without saying it outright?

Are Am Eye

The Baiba Saulite case.
The Gardai have a big dirty secret to cover up in that one.
They got a Prime Time expose pulled hours before it was due to air.

Are Am Eye

Ipso wrote: »

Father Niall Molloy, although our betters seem to be involved in that.

There was a prominent FF politician in the house the night Molloy was beaten to death. Let's dispose of this case as quikly and quietly as possible.

etselbbuns

Arsemageddon wrote: »

The second story you linked to is
(a) 22 years old
(b) Refers to a drug seizure in Kilkenny
(c) Was caused by a Garda Intelligence operation that went wrong

What either story you have linked has to do with the presumed murder of the woman in Carna is beyond me.

It refers to:
And in July 2004 a similar cargo, worth IR£10m, was found on a quiet beach near Ballyconneely in Connemara...

It's to point out there is a certain lawlessness in more isolated parts.

branie2

etselbbuns wrote: »

It refers to:
And in July 2004 a similar cargo, worth IR£10m, was found on a quiet beach near Ballyconneely in Connemara...

It's to point out there is a certain lawlessness in more isolated parts.

How much is IR£10m in euros?

etselbbuns

branie2 wrote: »

How much is IR£10m in euros?

€13m
Just washed up on a beach, just like that.

Arsemageddon

etselbbuns wrote: »

It refers to:
And in July 2004 a similar cargo, worth IR£10m, was found on a quiet beach near Ballyconneely in Connemara...

It's to point out there is a certain lawlessness in more isolated parts.

Lads out in Connemara might be a bit wild at times, but it's a bit of a stretch to suggest they are international drug traffickers!

BPKS

etselbbuns wrote: »

It refers to:
And in July 2004 a similar cargo, worth IR£10m, was found on a quiet beach near Ballyconneely in Connemara...

It's to point out there is a certain lawlessness in more isolated parts.

I doubt theres a drug trafficking gang natives of Connemara responsible for this!

What happens in these cases is that a cargo ship, say bound for Galway Docks, anchors to wait for the correct tides, permissions to dock.

The drugs are then dropped off the side of the ship (obviously attached to some inflatable to allow them to be identified and now with trackers) and collected by small boat by the contacts on land.

Juran

I grew up 20 miles from here, I remember the 80's pretty well but i never heard of this case until 2015 when the media reported the re-opening of the investigation. My friends said the same. It's very sad and my heart goes out to her kids.

Two things struck me:
1. Why was she sleeping on the sofa on her own and not in bed ... i know they 'mentioned' on prime time that she was seen having an argument with her husband. The daughters did not say if it was common for mum to sleep on the couch.
2. People who wear glasses never leave home without them - this was also mentioned by the Garda but not stressed by the relatives during the TV report.