Every day in Ireland somebody who has just gone out shopping, has left for a night out, or simply gone down the street to buy a packet of cigarettes, never returns home. These people are part of the 2000 or so cases of disappearance each year in the Republic. In an effort to locate them, a Tallaght-based priest has turned to the Internet.
Father Aquinas Duffy's involvement with the issue of disappearance began when his cousin, Aengus Shanahan, went missing in Limerick on October 11th, 2000. Anxious to highlight Aengus's disappearance, Father Duffy approached the only site that dealt with missing persons, www.garda.ie.
However, as Father Duffy discovered, this site not only lacked a specific section dealing with disappearances, but also held only a restricted number case profiles among unrelated press releases. (The Gardβ site has since been revamped and now contains a comprehensive missing persons listing) To supplement the official service, Father Duffy dedicated a page of his parish site, www.springfield.ie, to covering his cousin's disappearance.
Families of missing persons, began contacting him to ask if he could do something similar for them. Father Duffy set up the website www.missing.ws, which is Ireland's only website with the sole purpose of locating missing persons.
The logistics of mounting a campaign to find someone can be daunting at the best of times. It is in such circumstances that Father Duffy sees the Internet as having a leading role.
"If somebody goes missing in London, and their family is from Clare, it is logistically impossible for them to set up an appeal. Through the Internet it is possible to target an area, no matter if it is Dublin, London or New York, where posts can be printed off and circulated around societies, pubs and hostels.".
Apart from helping to locate people, www.missing.ws has also become a meeting ground for those involved in searching. The support that such contacts provide is seen as being of particular benefit once the general media's initial interest begins to subsides.
Seeking publicity over the Internet does pay off. Kevin Creenan, the Irish man who turned up in Columbia after a decade, could have found himself languishing in a prison cell, if the authorities hadn't been able to verify his identity quickly from www.missing.ws.
Father Duffy likes to mention the Creenan case not only because of its success, but also, it highlights the danger of jumping to conclusions.
Sadly, the majority of cases don't have the happy ending of Mr Creenan's. Disappearances can take years to solve, if ever, and the person is more likely to be found dead than alive. To date, only two people among those listed on www.missing.ws have been found alive, while a further five cases were closed on the discovery of a body.
While the finding of a body is not what people want, it does mark a closure to their search. Many others, like Father Duffy and his relatives, are left waiting in the hope that somebody, somewhere, may know something about their loved one.
Trying to turn such vague-sounding words as "someone", "somewhere", into facts, results in countless families finding themselves playing the roles of amateur detective, logistics expert and full-time campaigner.
Father Duffy's site doesn't make for pleasant reading, but all are encouraged to log in. As Father Duffy says, "It may be sad, but if it leads to greater awareness, that could provide a clue to conclude a family's search."