Grave being exhumed at Glasnevin for 1980s cold-case inquiry

A grave at Glasnevin Cemetery in north Dublin was being exhumed by gardaí on Wednesday as part of a cold-case inquiry dating back to the 1980s.

The exhumation at the Dublin cemetery early on Wednesday was being conducted for the purposes of obtaining samples that may identify a man who died about 40 years ago.

His body was taken from the River Liffey in Dublin but he was never identified, meaning his body could never be claimed and his remains were buried in an unmarked grave.

In reply to queries, Garda Headquarters in the Phoenix Park confirmed an exhumation was taking place “as part of ongoing efforts to formally identify a deceased male that was taken from the River Liffey” in May of 1982.

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“The exhumation is for the purposes of obtaining a DNA sample in the hope of identifying the deceased.”

Gardaí have identified dozens of graves around the country in which unidentified human remains were buried between the 1970s and 1990s.

While the total number is almost 40, some 12 graves at Glasnevin have been identified by the Garda National Missing Persons Unit as containing remains that were not identified on burial.

It was expected Wednesday’s exhumation would be the first in a series of operations aimed at obtaining DNA profiles of several unidentified people who were buried in similar circumstances at different times since the late 1970s.

Once those samples have been taken from the bodies they can be crosschecked against a database of DNA samples taken from the relatives of people who went missing and are assumed dead.

Many families of people who are missing presumed dead have continued to campaign for decades for news of their loved ones. As DNA-based police work has become more sophisticated, it now offers a line of inquiry not available at the time of many of the disappearances.

More to follow.