SF man knows where Columba McVeigh is buried, says republican who gives names to help find his remains

Suzanne Breen, Belfast Telegraph, December 16th, 2024

A republican has disclosed the names of three people he says were involved in the IRA disappearance of Columba McVeigh in the hope that it will lead to the discovery of the body after almost 50 years.

The man contacted the Belfast Telegraph with the information which he believes can help the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains (ICLVR) find the remains.

He revealed details of two IRA members he claimed were directly involved in the 1975 murder, and of another man whom he said had helped to dig the grave.

The man he named as the gravedigger is a Sinn Fein member who is well-known in his local community. We have passed all the information he provided onto the ICLVR.

The republican said he was coming forward after appeals made over the disappeared in the wake of the Disney series Say Nothing.

The ICLVR has conducted six unsuccessful searches in Bragan Bog, Co Monaghan, for Columba's body.

The 20-year-old from Donaghmore in Co Tyrone was disappeared from where he'd been living in Dublin, before being driven to Monaghan, then killed and secretly buried by the Provisionals.

The republican, who was not himself involved in the disappearance, said he later learnt details of what had happened.

He named two IRA members whom he said had “collected Columba and brought him to the mountain”.

He gave a harrowing account in which he said the men were “very nervous themselves... shaking” in the minutes before the murder.

“Had Columba made any attempt to get away, they'd have let him go,” the republican said. “But he did not try to and they walked him to the grave.”

He said it had been dug by a man who initially thought he was digging a dump to store arms.

“When he was halfway through, he realised what was about to happen. He said, 'F*** you — this is a grave I'm digging, not an arms dump',” the republican said.

“He continued digging and, when he finished, he was told to go home and tell nobody.”

The republican said this man is a Sinn Fein member: “I believe he could walk to the spot and peg Columba's grave.

“He could certainly mark it to within five metres squared. If he says he couldn't, he's a liar. Even at this late stage, he should do the right thing.

“I cannot understand why there have been so many unsuccessful digs that likely cost millions. I suspect that some of the information given to the commission has been deliberately misleading, because they don't want Columba's body found.”

The republican said he hoped that the information he was passing onto the commission could assist its search.

“It was annual missing persons' day in Ireland a fortnight ago. I can't begin to imagine what Columba's family has been through. I hope that their misery will end soon, and they are able to give him a Christian burial,” he added.

The ICLVR has found the bodies of 13 people since it was established by the British and Irish governments in 1999.

It located what is believed to be the remains of a 14th victim, Joe Lynskey, in a Co Monaghan cemetery a fortnight ago. The process to formally identify the body has not yet been completed.

Apart from Columba, the remains of two other men killed by the IRA — Army officer Capt Robert Nairac and Lurgan man Seamus Maguire — have still to be found.

A Sinn Féin spokesperson said: “Sinn Féin has consistently called for anyone with information that could lead to the retrieval of bodies in the outstanding cases to come forward to the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains.”

A shameful story of lies, half truths and a mother left to die in torment.

SUZANNE BREEN ANALYSIS, Belfast Telegraph, December 16th, 2024

Every Christmas, Vera McVeigh bought her missing son new clothes. There were three drawers of shirts and socks waiting for Columba when the IRA eventually admitted murdering him.

She loved all her four children, but it was an open family secret that her middle boy was her favourite.

Columba has been missing now for almost half a century. He left his flat in Dolphin's Barn, Dublin, to buy cigarettes on Halloween night in 1975. He never returned.

He was driven to Monaghan where he was shot and secretly buried in Bragan Bog by the IRA. He had just turned 20. There have been six unsuccessful searches for his body.

A republican, who has named three men he said were involved in Columba's disappearance, believes some information given to the Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains (CLVR) has been deliberately misleading.

He told the Belfast Telegraph that the man who dug the 20-year-old's grave could locate it to within “five metres squared”. The man he named as the grave digger is a Sinn Fein member.

“Columba was shot like a dog and buried like a dog,” his brother Oliver said. “The IRA behaved disgracefully.”

Oliver hopes that those involved will now come forward with accurate information on where his brother lies in Bragan Bog.

For two decades, Vera refused to go on holiday in case her son came home when she was away. Columba's red setter Dusty sat on the pavement outside their home in Donaghmore, Co Tyrone, waiting on him every day until she died.

On Vera's kitchen wall, her son's photograph hung beside a picture of Padre Pio. She was a deeply religious woman but, until she died aged 82, she cursed the IRA for what they did to her son.

She despised them, not just for killing her beloved boy, but for the wall of silence they kept in place until Palm Sunday 1999 when they finally admitted 'disappearing' him. And even now, according to the republican who spoke to the Belfast Telegraph, those who could put the McVeighs out of their misery refuse to do so.

Columba has become a familiar face in newspapers and on TV screens whenever a fresh dig begins for his remains. He's resplendent in top hat and tails after winning a talent competition.

He'd been in his element singing and dancing on stage with other members of a local youth club.

It's not just the Provisionals who emerge appallingly from this story. In 1974, an Army intelligence unit approached Columba. He was given bullets to hide in his bedroom.

The Army's plan was that when soldiers raided the McVeighs' home, the teenager would escape and seek help from a local man suspected of ferrying IRA members across the border. Soldiers would then arrest this individual.

However, the man refused to assist Columba who was himself arrested and charged with possession of ammunition. He served four months in Crumlin Road jail, sending a handkerchief he made there to his parents.

Under IRA interrogation, he confessed to being an informer. He also claimed British intelligence had planned to pass him poison on a visit to kill the IRA prison commander, Brendan Hughes.

Sources say that Columba gave his interrogators false information because he was naïve and scared, and that he was badly beaten. Oliver said: “He was a terrified, vulnerable teenager, used and abused by both the British and the IRA. He hadn't the savvy to be an informer. When he was interrogated in jail, he talked a load of nonsense even making up fictitious names.

“He wasn't blessed with brains. He knew nothing about politics. He was just a big, innocent lad. At home, Dusty would sit at his feet or on his knee.

“If he bought a bar of chocolate for himself, he'd buy her one. At Christmas when we'd get tins of biscuits, Columba took out every pink wafer for Dusty. That says it all about him.” After Columba was released from prison, he went to Dublin where the McVeighs believed he'd be safe. He'd always had an eye for the girls.

Initially, Vera wasn't worried when he hadn't been in contact. She suspected he'd got a girl pregnant and was too frightened to come home and face his father Paddy.

Oliver said she clung to that hope for years: “My mother would say, 'One day Columba will walk through the door with a pile of grandchildren for me to mind.' She wouldn't have cared if he had 20 children. She just wanted him home.”

After the IRA admitted disappearing her son, Vera was tormented by thoughts of his final hours. A priest told her that it would have been over quickly, but she was haunted by images of him being tortured.

She was alive for the first three digs. She'd arrive with cigarettes, biscuits, and cases of Guinness for the searchers.

Vera talked about Columba every day until she died in 2007. She is buried with her husband Paddy in Donaghmore cemetery.

She left her Rosary beads with the instruction that they be placed in her son's hands the moment he is found. Columba's name is engraved on the back of the headstone.

“Her dying wish was that I continue the fight,” said Oliver.

“I am my mother's son. As long as I'm breathing I will do whatever is necessary to find my brother.”