Gardai to dig Monaghan bog for McVeigh remains

Later this morning gardai will begin digging part of a County Monaghan bog in their latest attempt to recover the remains of Columba McVeigh, the seventeen year old who was kidnapped and murdered by the IRA in 1975.

The operation will be the third time gardai have dug up part of the bog at Emyvale in County Monaghan in an attempt to recover the remains of Columba McVeigh.

Last week the Commission for the Location of Victims Remains was given new information from the IRA through an intermediary. Gardai examined the bog as a result of that information and a decision was made to dig again.

Gardai spent seven weeks in the summer of 1999 searching the bog for the remains of Mr McVeigh - the second attempt was made in May of 2000. This time the gardai will digging two relatively small sections of bog and its estimated it will take a maximum of four to five days to excavate these areas fully.

A spokesman for the Commission said they would be very cautions about being overly optimistic with this latest dig.

The terrain is particularly difficult to search and yesterday's torrential rain may make the operation even more difficult.

This search comes ten days after what appear to be the remains of another one of the so called disappeared, Jean McConville, were found by accident on Shelling Hill beach in County Louth.