Gardai have extended the site of a search at Emyvale, Co Monaghan, for the remains of a Co Tyrone man who was kidnapped and murdered by the IRA in 1975.
Digging is expected to continue, at least for the rest of this week, at four sites where the IRA told intermediaries it secretly buried the bodies of six people, four of them in two double graves.
Huge excavation sites and drainage works at the six sites originally identified by the IRA have so far failed to turn up any sign of human remains after three-and-a-half weeks of searching.
Searches at two sites: Oriston Bog, Co Meath, where Belfast man Brendan Megraw is said to have been buried in 1978; and Lacken, in the Wicklow Mountains, where Danny McIlhone, also from Belfast who disappeared in 1978, is also said to be buried, were called off on Monday after gardai advised there was little or no hope in further searching.
It is understood gardai were close to ending the search for Columba McVeigh, the 17-year-old Tyrone youth kidnapped and killed in 1975, at Emyvale, Co Monaghan, at the original site identified by the IRA. However, local information, which may not be accurate, came forward in recent weeks that there was a grave in a location near the site shown by the IRA. This was being excavated yesterday.
At Templetown Beach, outside Carlingford, gardai have excavated a site the size of a football pitch but have still not discovered any human remains. This search will continue up to the embankment edge of the beach and adjoining fields. Gardai will also demolish and excavate under a partially-built public toilet on the site.
Searching continued yesterday at Colgagh, near Culaville, Co Monaghan, for the remains of John McClory and Brian McKinney, who disappeared in Belfast in 1978; and at Coghalstown Wood, Co Meath, where Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee, who disappeared in Belfast in 1972, are said to be buried.