How common is it for people to leave their lives behind?

nigel_wilson

In Ireland mainly? It seems that this is ''commonplace'' (not exactly common but a room of people would have stories) in the US but I have not heard of it in Ireland except for the few missing person cases and all of those are completely unsolved so you don't know whether they were abducted and/or murdered or simply just chose to leave.

I'm surprised we don't hear about teen runaways.

Ficheall

People die all the time..

Conservatory

Pa went for a pack of cigarettes.

silverharp

There is something in the US called end of the liners or something similar, basically they head for places like Alaska ,find a cabin somewhere and cut off all contact with their old lives. In Ireland its probably called Leitrim

ArnoldJRimmer

silverharp wrote: »

There is something in the US called end of the liners or something similar, basically they head for places like Alaska ,find a cabin somewhere and cut off all contact with their old lives. In Ireland its probably called Leitrim

You nearly had a point, but everyone knows that Leitrim doesn't exist

Eggs For Dinner

Have a look in the Weddings Forum. For every bride to be posting, there is a fallen comrade who leaves behind all that he was.

"Lest We Forget"

nthclare

Back in the 80's they ran away with the circus or carnival....

Del2005

nigel_wilson wrote: »

In Ireland mainly? It seems that this is ''commonplace'' (not exactly common but a room of people would have stories) in the US but I have not heard of it in Ireland except for the few missing person cases and all of those are completely unsolved so you don't know whether they were abducted and/or murdered or simply just chose to leave.

I'm surprised we don't hear about teen runaways.

Plenty of Irish have emigrated and have no contact with their family or friends, not as common now with the Internet but till the end of the last century communication was slow and rare.

wexie

Del2005 wrote: »

Plenty of Irish have emigrated and have no contact with their family or friends, not as common now with the Internet but till the end of the last century communication was slow and rare.

really? I'm pretty sure I remember using the internet, email and phones before the end of last century....



but I guess in the terms of a century you're probably right.

Hector Bellend

Usually mid ****.

I'll be screaming things at Kelly Brooke' tits, then reality bites

Lady Spangles

I don't think anyone in Ireland could make a new start *in* Ireland. They would need to emigrate and Britain would be the easiest place to get to (especially if doing a midnight flit). I went the other way: I left Liverpool and came to Ireland for a new start (cutting off contact with everyone except my awesome parents).

To disappear completely is more complicated. I mean, when disappearing is more than just a "new start" in a new country. Many go to the lengths of assuming a new identity (a process called "ghosting" is apparently quite common - it involves stealing the identity of a dead child who would have been about your age, had they lived).

In England, London is the easiest place to vanish. The city is huge, community is almost non-existent and it's an endless metropolis. Dublin might be the same, but it's a stretch. In short, if you want to vanish, you can.

josip

Lady Spangles wrote: »

...Many go to the lengths of assuming a new identity (a process called "ghosting" is apparently quite common - it involves stealing the identity of a dead child who would have been about your age, had they lived)...

Frederik Forsyth has a lot to answer for..

PARlance

Our neighbour growing up did a runner. Left his wife and two kids behind, never to be seen again. Well he was seen, people knew that he was living in another country, he just never returned.

Ray Palmer

Where my mother grew up a father had a blazing argument and stormed out. He never came back. The mother and children cursed his name. Thirty years later the Garda arrived at the house asking about the father.
It turns out he had fallen in the Dublin Wicklow mountains and they just found his body and were following up based on a wallet they found. His friends had always thought it weird he disappeared and he used to go for long walks to clear his head. So it seems he fell when walking and never left his family

Lady Spangles

This case happened in the UK, but it's baffled me ever since it first happened. The kid literally walked off the page. London is under heavy surveillance at all times, terror threat or no, yet this boy still somehow managed to evade all cameras. It's also a relatively recent case, happening well into the age of social media, mobile phones and all manner of other technology.

So yeah, as I said above, vanishing is still very much possible. Linky!

doolox

Because America is a big continent with limitless borders, common language and huge population it is common for overly burdened men to disappear especially if they have knowledge of other American languages and cultures such as Spanish and Portuguese which allows them to disappear to Mexico or Brazil, which do not have good relationships with the USA regarding fugitives and extradition.

When faced with a lifetime of heavy payments for child support and alimony on a small and limited income running away can become a desperate but attractive solution. Especially if you hate the wife and the kids have been turned against you. It happens.

RhubarbCrumble

Lady Spangles wrote: »

This case happened in the UK, but it's baffled me ever since it first happened. The kid literally walked off the page. London is under heavy surveillance at all times, terror threat or no, yet this boy still somehow managed to evade all cameras. It's also a relatively recent case, happening well into the age of social media, mobile phones and all manner of other technology.

So yeah, as I said above, vanishing is still very much possible. Linky!

I knew that would be Andrew Gosden before I clicked the link. He had apparently been talking to someone online and it's assumed that he went to meet them. By all accounts he was quite naive and not streetwise. Sadly I think he met with an unhappy ending soon after meeting whoever it was he went to see.

I don't think he vanished of his own accord.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Ireland is far, far too small for any of that "find myself"/ "disappear myself" nonsense from Hollywood. You could be standing in a field in the middle of the Oileáin Árann and the fella who comes across you would just keep talking to you until he makes a connection. And he will make that connection.

It's incredible how common that is, and how shockingly tiny this society is.

Lady Spangles

RhubarbCrumble wrote: »

I knew that would be Andrew Gosden before I clicked the link. He had apparently been talking to someone online and it's assumed that he went to meet them. By all accounts he was quite naive and not streetwise. Sadly I think he met with an unhappy ending soon after meeting whoever it was he went to see.

I don't think he vanished of his own accord.

While that's more than likely true, it's still strange that no cameras picked him up as he left the station and into the presumed stranger's car. That whole area is covered and would have been more so after the Underground attacks, a year or so before.

Mrs OBumble

Del2005 wrote: »

Plenty of Irish have emigrated and have no contact with their family or friends, not as common now with the Internet but till the end of the last century communication was slow and rare.

For some it was deliberate: when i was growing up on the other side of the world, it was common to hear of Irish guys dying and all anyone knew was that they'd cpme from Ireland. They didn't share any more details because they just wanted to forget.

Trasna1

It's next to impossible to disappear like that in Ireland, the country is far too small. If you wanted to walk away from your old life you would need to emigrate.

Graces7

ArnoldJRimmer wrote: »

You nearly had a point, but everyone knows that Leitrim doesn't exist

Hmm. I lived there several years ... good place...

Graces7

Lady Spangles wrote: »

I don't think anyone in Ireland could make a new start *in* Ireland. They would need to emigrate and Britain would be the easiest place to get to (especially if doing a midnight flit). I went the other way: I left Liverpool and came to Ireland for a new start (cutting off contact with everyone except my awesome parents).

To disappear completely is more complicated. I mean, when disappearing is more than just a "new start" in a new country. Many go to the lengths of assuming a new identity (a process called "ghosting" is apparently quite common - it involves stealing the identity of a dead child who would have been about your age, had they lived).

In England, London is the easiest place to vanish. The city is huge, community is almost non-existent and it's an endless metropolis. Dublin might be the same, but it's a stretch. In short, if you want to vanish, you can.

I have vanished from most of Ireland!

Graces7

Deleted User wrote: »

Ireland is far, far too small for any of that "find myself"/ "disappear myself" nonsense from Hollywood. You could be standing in a field in the middle of the Oileáin Árann and the fella who comes across you would just keep talking to you until he makes a connection. And he will make that connection.

It's incredible how common that is, and how shockingly tiny this society is.

Come to wild Mayo. It is a world apart, thankfully! And/or one of the isles

_Brian

I remember back in the late 70’ss neighbor of ours walked out one day, left his wages on the table for his mother and left. He was spotted waiting on the bus to Dublin and never seen again. Single man in his 20’s.

6541

They say 7 degrees of separation in the world. In my opinion its about 3 in Ireland. EXCEPT, North of Ireland Unionist / Protestant community where its definitely 7 degrees of separation.

whisky_galore

Anyone on witness protection or anyone released from prison after a 'controversial' crime I guess.

WildWater

Lady Spangles wrote: »

This case happened in the UK, but it's baffled me ever since it first happened. The kid literally walked off the page. London is under heavy surveillance at all times, terror threat or no, yet this boy still somehow managed to evade all cameras. It's also a relatively recent case, happening well into the age of social media, mobile phones and all manner of other technology.

So yeah, as I said above, vanishing is still very much possible. Linky!

It's a really sad case and one I had not heard of before but you are making him sound like Jason Bourne. From the article that you linked to:

• It was 27 days before the CCTV footage at Kings Cross came to light.
• Initially the London MET were not involved it was the BTP (who clearly could have done a better job).

It doesn't say when the London MET got involved but its likely they only got actively involved after the Kings Cross CCTV emerged. So, far from him somehow managing to evade all cameras the likely explanation is that any potential recording of him was destroyed by the time the police came looking.

Sad.

Call me Al

Graces7 wrote: »

Come to wild Mayo. It is a world apart, thankfully! And/or one of the isles

I'm afraid moving to a wild Mayo island (not the one you're on admittedly but spitting distance away) doesn't make you immune from bumping into people who might know you (or of you) once there can be any sort of throughput of people or even just seasonal population influx.

Unless of course a person was making a conscious decision to go off the reservation or assuming a completely new identity.
It would be very hard to keep up such a pretence though without a significant amount of planning and or self-sacrifice.

rainbowtrout

Graces7 wrote: »

Come to wild Mayo. It is a world apart, thankfully! And/or one of the isles

Moving to a very rural part of Ireland/one of the islands, just means that everyone in a 20 mile radius will have heard that you're moving in before you actually do, and have your backstory before you introduce yourself to anyone.

Graces7

rainbowtrout wrote: »

Moving to a very rural part of Ireland/one of the islands, just means that everyone in a 20 mile radius will have heard that you're moving in before you actually do, and have your backstory before you introduce yourself to anyone.

You do not know West Mayo. No one knows all that here. Sparse population with far better things to do with their time.

Not even everyone on the island knew; some i met thought I was a walker over for the day.

Graces7

Call me Al wrote: »

I'm afraid moving to a wild Mayo island (not the one you're on admittedly but spitting distance away) doesn't make you immune from bumping into people who might know you (or of you) once there can be any sort of throughput of people or even just seasonal population influx.

Unless of course a person was making a conscious decision to go off the reservation or assuming a completely new identity.
It would be very hard to keep up such a pretence though without a significant amount of planning and or self-sacrifice.

Wrong!

RiderOnTheStorm

Read an article a while back, written by a private investigator, who said that it was very possible to disappear almost indefinitely. People would be found however, when they came back for funerals or weddings or some significant life event. People are creatures of habit. The longer they have been away the greater the draw is to be at the back of a crowd and just see a daughter or grandchild get married etc...

rainbowtrout

Graces7 wrote: »

You do not know West Mayo. No one knows all that here. Sparse population with far better things to do with their time.

Not even everyone on the island knew; some i met thought I was a walker over for the day.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember from previous posts of yours that you are from the UK. So it's a little different to move to an island off the coast of Mayo and posting that no one knows you, in comparison to an Irish person moving to the island, where an islander will make a connection to someone, somewhere in the country that knows them.

And if you are mistaken for a tourist, that's possibly because of your accent, but if an Irish person moved to the island, law of averages would dictate that they would run into someone from their home area over on a day trip at some stage.

Cleopatra_

Disappear and start afresh in Ireland? Not possible, the place is a fcuking fishbowl.

PARlance

Cleopatra_ wrote: »

Disappear and start afresh in Ireland? Not possible, the place is a fcuking fishbowl.

Try Belmullet.

Thud

whisky_galore wrote: »

Anyone on witness protection or anyone released from prison after a 'controversial' crime I guess.

A guy from where i come from who killed his wife tried setting up somewhere else when he got out, was spotted in the new location within a few weeks

josip

PARlance wrote: »

Try Belmullet.

I think the opposite.

If you want to get lost in Ireland move to Dublin; people there don't need to have a 'handle' on you.

People in rural Ireland won't rest until they've established a connection, even if that connection is that Philly's niece who moved to Tipperary was working with a lad who said the newcomer was 4 classes ahead of him in primary school.

Call me Al

josip wrote: »

I think the opposite.

If you want to get lost in Ireland move to Dublin; people there don't need to have a 'handle' on you.

People in rural Ireland won't rest until they've established a connection, even if that connection is that Philly's niece who moved to Tipperary was working with a lad who said the newcomer was 4 classes ahead of him in primary school.

Coming from a community not a million miles away from Belmullet but now in a more urban setting this would be my experience of how things work.

Whilst you likely won't have less solitude and isolation in a city you can definitely have much more anonymity if you choose to it.

AllForIt

Im sure some ppl run away from their families hoping never to see them ever again. Just look at the kinds of ppl you see around everyday - who could blame

BoroMan32

Within Ireland, very difficult I'd imagine. Unless of course family circumstances are fractured and nobody goes looking for you anyway.

There are some fascinating cases from the US and UK of people doing similar. There are some great online resources and groups (websleuths etc) who work to try 'solving' cases involving unidentified bodies going back decades. In many cases the missing people were never even reported as missing etc.

One of the supposed John Wayne Gacy victims turned up alive 33 years later, he'd simply parked his car at a train station, dropped the keys into a drain and set off to make a new life. http://www.thejournal.ie/two-of-us-serial-killers-victims-turn-up-alive-after-30-years-311490-Dec2011/

AntrimGlens

About four years ago a man left his house on a sunday morning on his bike and he has never been seen since. The bike was found against a wall opposite the entrance to an outfarm of ours three days later, about twenty miles from his home. This is the sea wall of the north channel with scotland directly opposite and not exactly somewhere you would go for a sunday morning dip.
The police searched the farm for days, opened up slurry tanks and all sorts, but yer man has never been seen or heard from since, he left a wife and family behind.
Often wonder about him when i'm turning in the entrance to that farm.

BrokenArrows

Even moving to large cities you cant escape bumping into people you know.

I live in london and have bumped into people i know in parts of the city that neither of us would have usually been.

Ive also seen on facebook loads of times where people have bumped into other people in random places in south america and other places around the world.

I think to escape these days you literally need to buy a house in a large plot of private land and never leave.

Hercule Poirot

Rural communities aren't the answer - I moved to a rural area many years ago and not long after we moved I discovered a girl who I worked with had a grandmother living up the road from me. Her grandmother, who I'd never met, was able to tell her where we moved from, that my missus was foreign (and knew her nationality) and where she worked now. The only thing she didn't know, weirdly, was our names...

Ubbquittious

silverharp wrote: »

There is something in the US called end of the liners or something similar, basically they head for places like Alaska ,find a cabin somewhere and cut off all contact with their old lives. In Ireland its probably called Leitrim

Did you watch Into the Wild?
Surely there aren't huge numbers of people doing that

I have a funny feeling that a lot of the people who moved to Australia during the recession didn't do so for economic reasons but in order to play the wild rover without their relatives and neighbours finding out what shenanigans they were up to.

shakeitoff

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Even moving to large cities you cant escape bumping into people you know.

I live in london and have bumped into people i know in parts of the city that neither of us would have usually been.

Ive also seen on facebook loads of times where people have bumped into other people in random places in south america and other places around the world.

I think to escape these days you literally need to buy a house in a large plot of private land and never leave.

In fairness Irish people tend to travel the same paths.

7 Seconds...

rainbowtrout wrote: »

Moving to a very rural part of Ireland/one of the islands, just means that everyone in a 20 mile radius will have heard that you're moving in before you actually do, and have your backstory before you introduce yourself to anyone.

The nice part of living in a small rural town, is that even when I don't know what I am doing, someone else always does.

Mutant z

Ireland is a small place its virtually impossible to go anywhere without bumping into someone you know you would need to be somewhere the size of Russia or China to truly escape from everything.

Sleepy

It'd be relatively easy to do in a country the size of the US and far from impossible to do in the UK though you'd need to be prepared to move somewhere out of the way where cash-in-hand jobs were a possibility.

It's a thought experiment I've loved for decades but have never quite figured out how to leave Ireland without leaving some kind of paper trail of a flight or ferry journey (while it'd be possible to do the larne/cairnryan or channel crossing in a kayak or similar, doing so undetected would be rather harder since they're busy shipping lanes).

rainbowtrout

Sleepy wrote: »

It'd be relatively easy to do in a country the size of the US and far from impossible to do in the UK though you'd need to be prepared to move somewhere out of the way where cash-in-hand jobs were a possibility.

It's a thought experiment I've loved for decades but have never quite figured out how to leave Ireland without leaving some kind of paper trail of a flight or ferry journey (while it'd be possible to do the larne/cairnryan or channel crossing in a kayak or similar, doing so undetected would be rather harder since they're busy shipping lanes).

I was only on the Larne - Cairnryan ferry this week and wasn't asked for ID. So in theory you could probably chance booking it under a different name and off you go.