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NATIONAL MISSING PERSONS DAY IRELAND 2024 - Radio Espial EP61

Missing Persons Day, hosted by the Irish Department of Justice, is an annual commemorative day for families and friends to remember their missing loved ones. Missing Persons Day also provides a nationwide platform to appeal to the public for information on missing persons. Radio Espial's Brian Goggin reports on his experience of this year's event at Croke Park, Dublin.    
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THE VANISHING IRISH COUPLE: What Happened to Conor & Sheila Dwyer? - Radio Espial EP60

Conor and Sheila Dwyer, from Fermoy, Cork, Ireland, aged 62 and 60 respectively, were last seen and heard from between April 30th and May 1st, 1991. On May 22nd of 1991, they were reported missing when two family members along with gardai entered their Chapel Hill house only to find it empty and undisturbed. No trace of the couple has ever been found over the past 33 years. This is the story and timeline of their disappearance.  

MISSING & MURDERED: Bizarre Case of Kyran Durnin - Radio Espial EP59

Six-year-old Irish boy Kyran Durnin rose to national and international attention in August 2024 when he and his mother Dayla were both reported formally missing by a concerned family member. In reality, Kyran had been missing for almost two years when his mother left a note with family that she was leaving to take time out and get herself sorted. By September 2024 a slow and complex unravelling of a double missing persons case became public knowledge with widespread national appeals in Ireland. Irish police finally tracked Kyran’s mother down in the UK. During interviews, she could provide no information whatsoever to the whereabouts of her (then) eight-year-old son (if still alive). The investigation team quickly became suspicious and upgraded the missing case of Kyran Durnin to murder.  

MISSING: WHAT HAPPENED MARK DUFFY? - RADIO ESPIAL EP58

Mark Duffy, aged 43, went missing from his home in Navan, County Meath, Ireland on October 3rd, 2022. That morning, he left his home to collect a social welfare payment at a local post office in the Johnstown Shopping Centre. He was picked up on CCTV footage shortly before 11 am at the post office and later that day at a Centra supermarket on the Commons Road just before 3 pm and appeared to be crossing a road and heading back in the direction of Parnell Park where he lived. Mark never arrived back home that day. He was due to start a new job as a construction site foreman. He was formally reported missing without contact with his family on the 13th of October, 2022. What really happened Mark Duffy that October day?  

IRELAND'S PANDORA'S BOX: THE SATANIC MURDER OF JOHN HORGAN - Radio Espial EP57

In June 1973, seven-year-old schoolboy John Joseph Horgan from Palmerstown, Dublin was bludgeoned with a wooden club in a field close to his home while his mother was out visiting her next-door neighbour in hospital. She had entrusted the neighbour’s grandmother to watch over her son until she returned home. This is one of the most complex and disturbing murder cases we have ever covered. A case Irish authorities chose at the time to shove into what we refer to as Ireland's Pandora's Box.  

MISSING OR MURDERED? IMELDA KEENAN - COLD CASE - Radio Espial EP56

Imelda Keenan, 22, of Mountmellick, County Laois, was living in Waterford City, Ireland when she was reported missing on January 3rd, 1994. She was living in a rented flat in Waterford town on William Street. Imelda Keenan’s fiancĂ©, who would regularly stay at the flat, would later state to gardai that she told him she was going to the post office to pick up her unemployment benefit and some cat litter at a shop around 1:30 pm. Her brother Ned would formally report her missing that evening. However, in reality, no substantive and confirmed evidence ever emerged of Imelda for the two weeks prior to January 3rd and the previous Christmas period of 1993. This is a case with a multitude of different questions and anomalies that soon arose for Imelda’s family and gardai investigating her missing person case. 30 years on, we still don’t have many of those answers.  

MURDERED: LAYLA BRENNAN CASE - Radio Espial EP55

On the 2nd of March 1999, a car pulls up on Nassau Street in Dublin, Ireland late at night. 24-year-old Layla Brennan from Clondalkin is walking on the street. The driver is ‘looking for directions’ but this hides his real predatory intentions. Three days later, Layla’s body is found dumped in Killakee Forest in the Dublin Mountains. This is the case of Layla Brennan and what happened to her. The subject matter will not be easy. Who was Layla Brennan and what happened to her?