The family of Jean McConville say they now believe that the remains found at Shelling Hill beach on Wednesday are those of their mother.
The McConville family gathered at the mortuary of Louth Co Hospital in Dundalk yesterday awaiting the results of a preliminary post-mortem on the skeletal remains.
It found that the remains were of a woman of petite stature and that she had died from a single gunshot wound to the head.
A shoe, part of a blouse or jumper and some other garments were recovered in the shallow grave with the remains. They were identified by some of her children as belonging to her.
It was the closest they had been to her since she vanished in December 1972. She was a 37-year-old widow and her murder left her 10 children orphaned.
DNA samples have been taken to definitively confirm the identity, but it could be up to eight weeks before those results are available.
Speaking on behalf of the family after the post-mortem, her son Michael (41) said: "Judging by some of the items I have seen in there I do think it is my mother. There was one shot wound to the head as well and it is very likely it is my mother."
He said there was a sense of relief but that "no one understands the pressure we have been through the last 30 years and I would like to say that after this I hope we will be just left alone to bury out mother in peace in a dignified manner."
He believes his mother, who was 37 when she was abducted and murdered by the IRA, was killed because she comforted a British soldier.
He has forgiven her killers and is no longer angry as "they were probably only young kids themselves when it happened and didn't know much right from wrong."
However, he said he was angry at the lies and rumours spread about his mother over the years.
"For them not even to apologise for killing my mother and then telling us she was an informer was just tarnishing her name; everybody out there knows the reason why they killed my mother was she went to help a British soldier, the fact she was a Protestant didn't help matters."
As the family was left to come to terms with the news, the chairman of the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims, former tánaiste Mr John Wilson, visited the isolated beach where she had been found.
Children digging in sand at the bottom of an embankment that had subsided onto the beach accidentally unearthed the grave. A piece of material could be seen sticking out of the sand and when a man with them investigated he saw what he believed to be human bones and contacted Dundalk Garda Supt Pat Magee immediately.
It now appears clear that if this beach and not nearby Templetown had been identified by the IRA to the commission, her grave would have been found almost immediately.
Sources confirmed that before gardaí returned in 2000 to begin their second search for her, the IRA was specifically asked if the location could be Shelling Hill and not Templetown; they insisted it was Templetown.
Speaking at the beach yesterday, Mr Wilson said there is little hope of finding any remains of the other "disappeared" abducted and murdered by the IRA. "Murdering a small woman with a large family is a terrible crime," he said.
Although he did not know if the remains were those of Mrs McConville, after being told that clothing had been recognised by her family, he said: "I am delighted for the family's sake because in all the cases we dealt with, the closure is so important."
The Sinn Féin chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, said the party hoped the family was about to be put out of its misery.
"It is our hope that the recovery of human remains at Shelling beach, close to the site which was previously examined, brings closure to the McConville family's long search for their mother's remains.
"At this time we are mindful that the family concerned continue to suffer great hurt and everybody's thoughts will be with them at this difficult time.
"Their feelings and the feelings of other families in similar situations should be respected by all," he said.