" Disappeared and forgotten " Those that are gone are gone, and those who remain are forgotten. Unnoticed by the world, Kathleen Armstrong lays flowers and says her prayers at the graves of strangers, because any grave is better than no grave at all. Her husband Charlie was lost to her 24 years ago, and the only hint about what happened to him, the residue of gunpowder in his abandoned car, took 17 years to come out. Ann Morgan knows a little more. She knows her brother, Seamus Ruddy, was killed by the INLA and buried two decades ago in some part of a forest near Rouen, in France, but the expanse of a forest is not a grave. Kieran Megraw waited 21 years for the knowledge that his brother, Brendan, really was dead and not gone off somewhere like you read about now and again. This month, it became 27 years that he has not had a body to bury or a reason why. Mark and Bernie O'Connor lost their son Gareth two years ago. and so they've known 24 months of speculation and guesses and. uncertainty. They are becoming familiar with the burden of the years. Almost two years after the body of Jean McConville finally turned up among sand dunes in Co Louth, and the headlines went away, the families of the Disappeared — most of them — are still waiting. Of the 17 people who are believed to have been murdered and secretly buried during the Troubles, 12 remain missing. The resolution of the McConville case which, for so long, had the highest profile among the Disappeared, seemed to settle among many people that the problem was solved. Public grievance melted back, but private affliction remains. "Everyone's got a hard case," says “Of the 17 people who are believed to have been murdered and secretly buried during the Troubles, 12 remain missing” Anna McShane, Charlie Armstrong's daughter, "hut I think the hardest and most inhuman are these." Her father disappeared on his way to Mass in Crossrnaglen in August 1981. His car, his "pride and joy" according to Anna, was found the next day in County Louth. Anna says she initially suspected that someone tried to take the car and her father resisted. The IRA continues to deny any connection to the disappearance, just as it denied knowledge of the McConville murder, the disappearance of Brendan Megraw and others. Then, in 1998, a senior Garda officer told the Armstrong family that forensic tests at the time of the disappearance had shown the car had carried a recently discharged gun before it was abandoned. It was clue to what happened, but brought them no closer to finality. "My mother has never given up hope," she says. "All she ever talks about is having a grave to go to. She will pray at anyone's grave, lay flowers at anyone's grave, because she has no grave to go to." The private, constant trauma of unresolved loss is what binds the families of the Disappeared together, in meetings organised through WAVE, the victims' group, and a now annual Mass on Palm Sunday. "I don't think anyone can believe or understand it if they haven't been through anything like it," Anna McShane says. "It's a very, very hard thing to come to terms with- People would see you getting on with your lives and you might think you're doing all right yourself, then something will happen and it's all back with you. “A day doesn't go by when you don't think about it. You get use better at covering it, but it's always there”. This month, a House of Commons committee, before departing for the election, declared it "reprehensible" that the families have been left to flounder without closure while the focus of the British and Irish governments moves on to other parts of the peace process. "It has gone down the list," says Kier-an Megraw. "It's been three years since the last dig. It's down the list all right but I think it's something most people would want to see solved." As the election campaign builds and there are expectations of more settlement negotiations after the vote, the families hope to revive the political pressure that helped bring forward information from the IRA that has contributed to the recovery of five bodies so far. But they say they also need more official help. Kieran Megraw would like to see the police file on his brother's 1978 disappearance, because there are conflicting stories about why the IRA abducted him. Ann Morgan wants the French government pushed more for searches for her brother. The families in general want the governments to make the recovery of their loved ones a priority again. In their report, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee said the British and Irish governments "have, to date, failed in their efforts to enable.these families to achieve closure for their hurt". The report recommended: "Named Ministers and officials should publicly take individual responsibility for the cases, and there should be regular, fixed meetings to update the families until a satisfactory outcome is achieved." Michael McConville. one of Jean Mc-Conville's 10 children, has tasted some thing of what the MPs call a "satisfactory outcome". “My mother has never given up hope. She will pray at anyone's grave, lay flowers at anyone's grave, because she has no grave to go to” "Now we've got a grave to go to, it does help ease the pain," he says. "It doesn't take it away. "I was always twisted and bitter about everything that happened to my mother. On the night they found her, I decided to forgive the people who killed her. That helped make me a better and stronger person. "But it wasn't one bit easy, especially when you see some of the people you know took her and run into them." He continues to work with and support the other families, because he says he made a pledge to himself to see all the bodies come home. "If there was peace permanently now, what meaning would that have for the Disappeared? What peace would the families of the Disappeared have without a grave to go to? They would still need to he putting on pressure. Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern haven't even had the decency to write back to us, and the ones who took our loved ones away can meet them at the drop of a hat. That's not justice in my eyes." "You wonder how many times and how many ways you have to ask these people before you get anything," says Anna McShane. "All it takes is someone to say "you're in the right area' or you're not digging in the right place'. "How do we get across that we genuinely, genuinely don't want retaliation? "You would never want to know the reason why, not who done it. All we want to know is the place. "A letter, a phone call, a word with the priest, anything that will give us information. All you ask for is a grave. A place my mother could go to." Belfast Telegraph 26 th April 2005 |
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