Search for missing Dublin teenager Kieran McKeon to resume in Derry today

The search is to resume in Derry today of the river Foyle for Dublin teenager Kieran McKeon (18), who has been missing since he left a city centre hotel in the early hours of last Thursday morning.

Mr McKeon had travelled to Derry with Alexandra O’Brien (21) on Wednesday after they left the St John of God hospital in Stillorgan, Dublin.

Ms O'Brien's body was found in the river Foyle on Thursday evening during a search operation launched after some of her belongings were found on Foyle Bridge earlier that day.

Voluntary organisation
Searches of the river over the weekend were co-ordinated by local voluntary organisation the Foyle Search and Rescue. The organisation's Craig Smyth said 16 volunteers took part in the searches.

“We have no evidence that Kieran may have fallen into the river; we are just working on that presumption after we recovered the body of his friend, Alexandra, on Thursday evening slightly upstream of the Craigavon Bridge close to our headquarters. Our approach will not change unless we receive new information regarding the whereabouts of Kieran from the PSNI,” he said.

“On Saturday one of Kieran’s uncles drove up from Dublin to Derry unannounced. He arrived at our headquarters and spoke with our volunteers and thanked them on behalf of Kieran’s family. He spent 10 minutes with the volunteers before he returned to Dublin and our volunteers really appreciated what he did and said.”

He said yesterday’s search was the same as Saturday’s. “Basically we deployed two boats and two jetskis to search a stretch of the river Foyle from Newbuildings on the southern side of Craigavon Bridge to Culmore Point on the northern side. We had the assistance of the Greencastle lifeboat, whose crew members searched the northern end of the lough and river up as far as Culmore Point.”