Troops from both sides of the Border had to call off the search for a missing Co Tyrone youth yesterday amid atrocious weather conditions. Fifteen-year-old Brendan Rushe from Castlederg went missing after attending a disco at the Abbey Hotel in Donegal town on Sunday night with two friends.
He was last seen at about 4 a.m. on Monday when he talked to gardaí, giving them his name and address.
Gardai are investigating a possible sighting of the missing youth at a bed and breakfast on the outskirts of Donegal early on Monday. A teenager knocked on the front door of the B&B on Ballyshannon road shortly before 5am. When the occupants did not answer, he walked back towards the town.
A motorist who saw a young man at Donegal town quay around half an hour later was being interviewed by gardai last night.
A pair of shoes was recovered around three miles north of Donegal on Wednesday, but Brendan's friends yesterday insisted that they weren't his.
A massive search operation involved a Garda sub-aqua unit, more than 100 Coast Guard personnel, two British army units combing bogland on the northern side of the Border, and hundreds of volunteers from Castlederg.
Two helicopters and a number of sniffer dogs were also on the scene earlier in the day.
Heavy rain and gale-force winds forced rescuers to abandon the operation in the early evening.
Brendan's parents, Collette and John, were studying CCTV footage from security cameras around the town centre at Donegal Garda station yesterday. Brendan is the second-eldest of their six children.
Brendan's uncle, Terence, who was part of the search team, said: "the guards are doing all they can.
"But frankly I can't understand how they could talk to a 15-year-old boy from outside the town at 4 a.m. and just let him walk away."
Mr Rushe said Brendan's disappearance was completely out of character. "It was only the second time he had gone to the disco," he said. "He was only allowed to go because he was on his half-term break. He was a really good lad."
Local gardaí yesterday would only say the search was continuing both in Donegal Bay and in the Lough Mourne and Lough Eske area and along Barnesmore Gap.