Beside Annyalla cemetery, the Angelus bells of St Michael’s Church rang out on Monday evening.
For the family of Joe Lynskey, the bells will continue to sound without resolution or relief.
Lynskey, a former monk from Belfast who later joined the IRA, was abducted, murdered and secretly buried by the IRA in 1972.
The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) on Monday announced that the results of DNA examinations on remains exhumed from a grave in the cemetery had eliminated the possibility of them being those of Lynskey “or any of the Disappeared” – the collective name for the IRA’s murder victims whose remains were hidden during the Troubles.
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The commission said the remains were not related to the family buried in the grave and remain unidentified.
The remains were exhumed in November after the commission said it received information related to “suspicious historic activity” during the 1970s at a grave in the cemetery.
Five months on, locals in Annyalla, which sits between Castleblayney and Clontibret next to the Border, are absorbing these developments about one of the Disappeared.
Across the busy Monaghan Road from St Michael’s lives Gerry McKeown (76). Like many others in the locality, his thoughts were with Lynskey’s family.
“For the family’s sake, I was hoping that the remains were his; I’m very surprised. I thought when they exhumed the body that it was his,” he says.
He was also “shocked” to hear that the exhumed remains do not belong to the family buried in the grave.
In the nearby townland of Cloghan, Gerry Crowley (66), a retired nursing home care attendant, was also mindful of the Lynskey family.
[ ‘Doubly cruel’ for Joe Lynskey family to learn exhumed remains are not hisOpens in new window ]
“It is very hard on the family – they were probably expecting closure on the situation. They may never get closure. It’s sad and they are broken-hearted,” he says.
Crowley was also disconcerted at the news that the remains exhumed do not belong to the family who are buried in the plot.
“I’m sure people of the parish would like to know who it is, they can’t just belong to nobody; they have to belong to someone,” he adds.
Some people approached for comment declined to speak.
However, some in the locality were not fully aware of the news, including Jason Kelly (43), originally from Carlow, who lives in the nearby Drumakelly estate in Cloghan.
“I wouldn’t know anything about it only for TikTok. I wouldn’t know that it was that grave over there. I wouldn’t know much of the history. I do remember the canopies when they were up back in November,” he says.
Kelly, who works as a team leader in Americold, a warehouse just outside Castleblayney, is unsure whetherLynskey’s remains will ever be found.
“I’d say that it’s very far-fetched that they will; I imagine it will be an unsolved case,” he says.
Across from Kelly lives Nuala Witek (44), a housewife who was thinking of the Lynskey family and of the family that owns the grave.
“I heard the news first thing this morning. My thoughts are with the family whose grave it is, that this will bring them one step closer for their ordeal to be over and I also have a lot of sympathy for Mr Lynskey’s family,” she says.
“I hope there will be closure for all the families of the Disappeared.”
Witek, who originally comes from Keady, Co Armagh, was concerned there is an unidentified body in the grave.
“Who is this poor person?” she asks.
An Garda Síochána said it has notified the local coroner and that attempts are being made to “determine the correct identification of the remains”.
