Fresh appeal launched for Disappeared Seamus Maguire
ICLVRA photo has been released of one of the Disappeared for the first time in a bid for fresh information.
The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains (ICLVR) issued the image alongside an appeal for information in relation to Seamus Maguire from Aghagallon, County Antrim, who disappeared almost 50 years ago.
It was initially thought he disappeared sometime around 1973-1974 but it has been established by the ICLVR that after spending time in Manchester he returned to Northern Ireland and was killed and secretly buried in the Aghagallon/Derryclone area near Lurgan in 1976 aged 29.
In February 2022 the ICLVR announced that it was adding Mr Maguire to the list of the Disappeared.
It is believed his death was a result of republican paramilitary activity though it is not yet clear which wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was involved.
'Complex case'
Investigator Mark Pickard who has been running the Seamus Maguire investigation since he joined the ICLVR in 2023 said that work has been ongoing on the case since it was referred by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to the ICLVR in 2022.
However, a specific search site within the Aghagallon/Derryclone area has yet to be identified by the ICLVR.
Mr Pickard said: "We have been working steadily to resolve the issue of Seamus' disappearance using all the resources available to the commission but this is a complex case dating back nearly 50 years and as ever in these circumstances we do need more information."
The ICLVR hope the new photograph of Mr Maguire will "jog someone's memory and move us on".
"As with all our cases our interest is purely humanitarian and all information that comes to us is treated in the strictest confidence and will not be passed to any enforcement body and will be used solely to help us find Seamus' remains and to bring them home to his family," added Mr Pickard.
"We are convinced that someone somewhere has a vital piece of information in relation to his disappearance even though they might not be aware of its significance.
"We need them to come forward and help end the decades of pain that the Maguire family have suffered."
'People can see the real person'
Dr Sandra Peake, chief executive officer of Wave Trauma Centre, which has supported the families of the Disappeared, said sharing an image of Mr Maguire allows people to "see the real person behind the word 'Disappeared'".
"Seamus was particularly close to his mother and the toll those years of anguish, waiting and not knowing where her son had been put in the ground cannot be overestimated," she said.
"I hope that anyone who knows anything about Seamus' disappearance will search their conscience and do what is right and bring that information to the ICLVR."
Who were the Disappeared?
The Disappeared are those who were abducted, murdered and secretly buried by republicans during Northern Ireland's Troubles.
Despite extensive and painstaking searches, the bodies have never been found of four out of 17 people listed by the Commission set up to locate victims' remains.
Searches have been carried out by the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains (ICLVR), established in 1999 by a treaty between the British and Irish governments to obtain information in strictest confidence that may lead to where the bodies are buried.
The four people yet to be found are; Joe Lynskey, Columba McVeigh, Robert Nairac and Seamus Maguire.
It was announced last month that human remains exhumed from a grave in County Monaghan in November 2024 were not those of Joe Lynskey, the ICLVR said.
A renewed search Robert Nairac's remains ended without success in October 2024.
A sixth search for Columba McVeigh ended in November 2023.
The plight of the Disappeared has been further highlighted in recent months due to the release of the Disney+ series, Say Nothing.