Mary Boyle

AGE PROGRESSED




DOB: 14-Jun-1970
Missing: 18-Mar-1977
Age Now: 38
Sex: Female
Hair: Lt. Brown
Eyes: Blue
Height: 3'11" (119 cm)
Weight: 49 lbs (22 kg)
Missing From:
DONEGAL

Ireland
Age Progressed

Mary Boyle is missing from her Grandmother's home at Ballyshannon Co Donegal, since the 18th March 1977. When last seen she was wearing a lilac coloured hand-knitted cardigan, brown jeans and black wellington boots.
ANYONE HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT
An Garda Síochána
Tel: 00 353 1 6666666 (24 hours) 00 353 1 6662615 (office hours) Email: gsmisspers@iol.ie

Mum still searches for her girl, 30 years on

By Anita Guidera
Thursday March 15 2007
A GRIEVING mother is still seeking answers about her missing daughter, 30 years after her mysterious disappearance.
Mary Boyle vanished without a trace from her remote grandparents' farm in Cashelard, near Ballyshannon, Co Donegal on March 18, 1977.
Her disappearance has baffled gardai and her distraught family for the past three decades, and she is officially Ireland's longest missing person. An intensive investigation which has continued over the years has failed to uncover a trace of the missing child since she was last seen by her uncle walking in the direction of her grandparents' home.
Her mother Ann - who is now a great-grandmother and lives near Kincasslagh - suffered a further tragedy almost two years ago when her husband Charlie drowned in a freak fishing accident. "There's not a day passes that I don't think about the two of them. At least now Charlie knows what happened to Mary. I miss him so much. He was always such a comfort when we grieved together for Mary," she said.
She added that with the recovery of Charlie's body from the sea, she had got some closure. "It's different with Mary, I don't even know what happened to her although at this stage I accept that she is dead. But it's the not knowing that's so awful, so unbearable," she said.
For Ann, facing the 30th anniversary of that awful day is even worse than other years because Charlie is no longer there to share the grief.
"I have a Mass said every year for Mary. Although she disappeared on March 18 we are having the Mass on St Patrick's Day."
After Mass at St Mary's Church, Kincasslagh, she will do what she does every week - pray at a shrine of an angel dedicated to Mary.
"I talk to Mary all the time. I talk to Charlie, too. I ask them where Mary is. I still hurt as much as I did in the days immediately after Mary disappeared."

Charlie & Mary Charley and Ann Boyle Thirty years ago, a little girl went missing from her grandparents' house in Cashelard, near Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal. Mary was following her Uncle Gerry, across the fields to a neighbouring farm when she turned back. She never returned home. The mystery of Mary Boyle's disappearance shocked the nation and changed Ann Boyle's life forever.

Only for the support from her husband, Charlie, Ann would never have coped. A year and a half ago, Ann received another fatal blow when Charlie died tragically in a fishing accident.

"It was Charlie's wish to know what happened to Mary before he died. Maybe Mary was a long time waiting for somebody to join her. Maybe she needed him more than I did."

Mary had a twin sister, also named Ann after her mother. Ann struggled through life without her soul mate.

"I always felt there was a part of me missing. When I made my communion, when I got married.any event that I would ever have, there was always a part of me missing."

The Boyle household always lived in the shadow of the tragedy of Mary's disappearance. Then at sixteen, Ann, Mary's twin, got pregnant and called the child Mary, after her sister.

"When she was born, she brought happiness back to the house.I wouldn't say she replaced Mary but she filled a kind of gap that was left by Mary."

Then, some years later, when Ann was getting married she was faced with a dilemma.

"When I got married, I had to make a decision to leave Mary with Mom and Dad because I couldn't put them through taking another Mary away from them."

Mary Jnr., is still living in the Boyle home. She too got pregnant at sixteen years old, and just a month after her grandfather's death she gave birth to a girl and named her Charley.

Today, 30 years later, Ann Snr. still pleads for any information on what happened to her daughter. When asked if finding out what happened to Mary could destroy her family, Ann says she would still want to know.

"But I wouldn't like to think it would destroy our family. I wouldn't like it to end that way."

This programme includes interviews with Ann Boyle, Ann Doherty née Boyle, retired Detective Sergeant Martin Collins and Michael Gallagher, Ann Boyle Snr.'s brother.