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THE VANISHING OF MARY BOYLE

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Mary Boyle (born 14 June 1970) was a six-year-old Irish girl who disappeared on the County Donegal-County Fermanagh border on 18th March 1977. To date, her disappearance is the longest missing child case in the Republic of Ireland. The investigation into her disappearance has been beset by allegations of political intervention and police incompetence. While arrests were made over many years, nobody has ever been charged in connection with her disappearance.

Mary Boyle was last seen at 3:30 pm on 18 March 1977 near her grandparents' rural farm in Cashelard, near Ballyshannon, County Donegal. The family, including Mary's mother Ann, father Charlie, older brother Paddy, and twin sister Ann, had gone to Mary's maternal grandparents' house on St Patrick's Day from their home in Kincasslagh in The Rosses, further up the coast. They stayed at the grandparents home overnight into the day of her disappearance. In total, there were eleven people at the household gathering, six adults and five children.

On the afternoon of March 18th, Mary was playing outside with her siblings and two cousins when her uncle Gerry Gallagher left to return a ladder to another farm (the McAuleys), 370 metres across the hillside and about short of a five minute walk across a pathway and three stone walls.

Mary followed her uncle until they reached a small pool of water that was too deep for her to get through. What happened then remains uncertain depending on witness statements and what would later be related to family and gardai.

Whether by her own decision or by her uncle's instruction, Mary turned around about halfway into the journey saying she was going back. Her return journey should not have lasted longer than three minutes, whilst her uncle stayed at the neighbour’s farmhouse for thirty minutes for a chat.

After discovering that Mary had disappeared, her family instituted searches of the local area and questioned passers-by if they had seen the girl.

Mary Boyle was reported missing about two hours after she disappeared, around 6.20-6.30 pm that evening. The Vanishing of Mary Boyle is a 47-year disappearance that would tear a family apart amid accusations over decades.

 

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