Speaking on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta today, Catherine Uí Chonghaile said her family would find solace even in the recovery of a body after her mother Barbara Walsh went missing from her home in Rusheenamanagh in Carna 35 years ago.
Ms Uí Chonghaile said that there were a lot of people in the house on the night her mother went missing on June 22nd 1985 and that someone knew what had happened.
Connemara is small... it’s over 35 years, but they could still come forward and say I know what happened that night, or I was there.
“An aunt, an uncle, Dad, two gardaí, it was said that there was a priest there, but there was no priest there that night... Most of the people who were there are dead now. There were plenty of people there, and they know what happened,” she said.
Ms Uí Chonghaile has appealed for anyone with information about the case to speak to the gardaí so that the family could finally get closure.
“Connemara is small... it’s over 35 years, but they could still come forward and say I know what happened that night, or I was there,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter how small, just to say it, this is going on too long. If anyone knows anything, to go to the gardaí... we need closure for ourselves and for the next generation of the family.”
“We want this to end... that we could have somewhere to go, that would be nice, everyone wants to be able to go to a grave, to say a prayer, to talk to them.”
Disappearance
Ms Uí Chonghaile, who is the eldest of Ms Walsh’s seven children, said that the last time she saw her mother she was preparing tea and sandwiches in the kitchen and that it was a few days before the children understood that she was gone.
“In the morning, we thought she was gone to the shop in Carna... we knew by the afternoon on Saturday that she was gone, but we didn’t understand really... we were only young,” she said.
Ms Uí Chonghaile said that they had been told several times by the gardaí that they had received letters to the station in Clifden from someone within the family discouraging them from investigating the case.
The gardaí were told about it and I suppose it took them two weeks before they started searching... we’re questioning why it took them so long to do something.
She also said the family had questions over the delay in starting the search for her mother.
“The gardaí were told about it and I suppose it took them two weeks before they started searching. We’re older now and we have children of our own, and we’re questioning why it took them so long to do something,” she said.
Ms Uí Chonghaile said Ms Walsh had been a kind mother,who had taught her children to swim on the beach and brought them on picnics.
She said it was impossible for them to imagine that she would just leave her seven children: “A mother wouldn’t just leave the seven of us... Someone knows something, and they can just call the gardaí in Clifden or in Galway.”
Barbara Walsh’s case will be examined on Crimecall on RTÉ One on Monday.
In 2015, a full case review was conducted with 66 individuals interviewed. Gardaí now planning a renewed series of searches.
