Chapter 18: The Search Begins

Tony Muggivan

Word spread fast throughout Whitegate and Mountshannon. On Sunday night, I had heard the news in Cologne, Germany, that Imelda Riney and her youngest son were missing. I called JJ and we talked about calling the guards. I immediately connected the disappearance of the Rineys to Brendan as I knew he was back in the Mountshannon and Whitegate area. We did not know yet if the guards had been contacted but later found out that Val Ballance had contacted them. JJ believed that the Rineys were already dead. I could not accept this. He asked me not to share his belief but to do all I could to make people take the report seriously. I was very anxious to get home but the soonest I could leave was Tuesday 3 May. We started from Cologne on Tuesday, very early in the morning. My friend, Hans, was driving as I wasn’t used to driving on the right-hand side of the road. We drove from Germany into Belgium and then to Le Havre in France where we caught the ferry to Dover. We all found the journey long as we didn’t have any communication with Mountshannon, and we continued to worry about the missing mother and child. When we arrived in Dover, I took over the driving and drove to Swansea in Wales where we caught the ferry for Cork. We boarded the ferry for the ten-hour overnight trip to Cork on Tuesday evening and tried to settle down for a few hours of sleep. We had a little food on the ferry and then the storm hit. Mary and Hans got very sick. In all the years I had fished with Hans, in all kinds of weather, I had never seen him sick before. It is now strange to imagine Fr Walsh and Brendan in Cregg House as we were crossing on the ferry from Swansea to Cork. It is even stranger to realise that the curate had probably been killed an hour or two before we docked in Cork. It was a bad storm and it made us two hours late coming into Cork. We arrived in Cork at about eight o’clock on Wednesday morning and stopped for a cup of tea and a quick couple of slices of toast as none of us felt very well after the night we had had. I drove the hundred miles to Mountshannon. I was driving Hans’s Mercedes and I travelled at very high speed without any complaints from Hans or Mary. We were in a hurry to get to

Mountshannon to see if we could help in the search.

As I was driving, I was thinking of what I would have to do. I asked myself what Mary would think when she saw me loading a gun and taking it with me on the search. What would my children think? I hoped to God they had him caught. If I came across him and he had a gun and the people were not found, what would I do?

I had a heavy box strapped to the roof of the car and, with the wind and sharp turns, I had to slow down as I got nearer to Mountshannon.

I was remembering my efforts to have Brendan hospitalised five years earlier and I was continuing to ask why they hadn’t admitted him for treatment. I did not yet realise that they had since admitted him after he had tried to kill his sister and her baby with a knife, but had released him after a couple of weeks.

The questions were racing around in my mind, one after the other. Why did he come back from England? Why didn’t he come to see me when he came back and give mea chance to help him again?

So many questions. What was I going to do when I got home if I found him and he had a gun? How was I going to search for aman who was a good shot with a gun and who knew his way around the fields, mountains, and forests of the area as well as I did? What would happen if I shot him and we never found where he had hidden Imelda and Liam?

If he saw a guard with me, he would shoot for certain. Questions, questions, questions — nothing only questions — no answers. I decided that I would go searching alone for a while and give him a chance to approach me.

Finally, we got home with none of us feeling very well. I loaded a double-barrel shotgun for Hans and brought him to his house on the Hill of Dooras, thinking to myself that Brendan knew every nook and cranny of the area and knew exactly the layout of Hans’s house.

I heard the report that Fr Walsh had not shown up for Mass that morning. I realised that there were now three people missing — Imelda Riney, Liam Riney and Fr Walsh.

Hans showed no surprise at my giving him the gun and he seemed ready to use it if he had to. I warned him to keep the gun close by at all times, to keep his doors locked, not to get into a conversation with Brendan if he came to his house, and to shoot him in the legs if he tried to break in.

I was worried for Hans because Brendan had worked for him before. Hans was a very kind man. He had paid him well, but had always paid him from his wallet where he would have had a large amount of cash. Brendan would have remembered this. Hans also had a good car, a Mercedes 250, which Brendan would probably have liked to have.

I went back to my own home — two miles away — and loaded my wife’s brother’s gun for Mary. Her brother, Michael O’Sullivan, was away at the time. I gave her the same instructions.

Iloaded my own gun and put it into the boot of the car. Before I left, Mary gave me some clothing for the mother and child as she was worried that they would be cold and wet if they had been out in the weather since they had gone missing.

I set off alone. It was now about the middle of the afternoon. I began my search with all the empty holiday homes in the area. I would drive slowly up to each house, as close as I could, and search for signs of footprints, broken windows, or anything that would show me that someone was there. It was slow work but I searched most of the obvious houses and got home before dark.

I thought it too dangerous to approach houses where he might be hiding as he would have a chance to see me without my being able to see him first. I had my mind made up that, should the situation arise, I would shoot him. My reasons for this decision were my contact with my brother and his advice, and Brendan’s threat in 1991 to ‘get’ someone close to me.

I went to Whitegate first thing on Thursday morning, 5 May. There seemed to be about a hundred people there and two guards. Most of the people were friends of Imelda Riney’s and of her children and were not originally from the area.

I asked the guards to close all of the roads but they said that they didn’t think there was enough manpower available yet. It was sad to see the worry on the faces of the missing people’s friends. It was already known that a priest from Eyrecourt was also missing. Fr Joseph Walsh lived only a short distance from Mary Quinn, Brendan’s grandmoter.

For reasons not known to me, the search was called off. I continued on my own, searching the empty houses and the forest roads. I spent all day searching but saw no sign of him or the missing

people anywhere.

I saw one garda squad car but I was reluctant to get involved with the guards, mostly because Brendan hated them and had told me in 1991 that should the opportunity arise, he would, as he said it, ‘do one in’.

I didn’t see anyone else searching but I knew that the alarm had already been raised and that there was probably a search going on.

At dark, I came home. My son’s gun was at home during this time. I wanted Mary to stay indoors and use the gun if she had to.

That night, I kept the gun near me at all times. Later, I heard from locals that there was a widespread search planned for the following day. The search was to start the following morning from Whitegate Church, which is not far from where Imelda Riney and her child lived.

That night also, Denis Woods came to the house and offered to join me in searching in the morning.