The daughter of missing Galway woman Barbara Walsh has issued an appeal for anyone with any information to contact the Gardaí so that the family can finally get closure.
Barbara Walsh went missing from her home Roisín na Mainiach in Carna, and her daughter Catherine Uí Chonghaile says that there were people in the house on the night she went missing who know what happened.
In an interview on Adhmhaidin on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta yesterday, Catherine raised questions over the length of time it took for the Gardaí to start investigating the disappearance.
She also said that on several occasions, the Gardaí said they had received letters to the station in Clifden from someone within the family discouraging them from investigating the case.
“Connemara is small … it’s over 35 years, but they could still come forward and say I know what happened that night, or I was there … anything,” Catherine said.
“It doesn’t matter how small, just to say it, this is going on too long.
“If anyone knows anything, go to the Gardaí … we need closure for ourselves and for the next generation of the family,” she said, and added that the family would even find solace in the recovery of a body at this stage.
Catherine said in the interview that there were a lot of people in the house on the night her mother went missing, but that there was no priest there, even though that had often been said.
“An aunt, an uncle, Dad, two Gardaí, it was said that there was a priest there, but there was no priest there that night.
“Most of the people who were there are dead now. There were plenty of people there, and they know what happened.”
The eldest of Barbara’s seven children, Catherine said that the last time she saw her mother she was preparing tea and sandwiches in the kitchen and that it was a few days before the children understood that their mother was gone.
“In the morning, we thought she was gone to the shop in Carna … we knew by the afternoon on Saturday that she was gone, but we didn’t understand really … we were only young.”
Catherine added that they had been told several times by the Gardaí that they had received letters to the station in Clifden from someone within the family discouraging them from investigating the case, although they have never seen these letters.
The family also had questions over the delay in starting the search for Barbara.
“The Gardaí were told about it and I suppose it took them two weeks before they started searching.
“We’re older now and we have children of our own, and we’re questioning why it took them so long to do something.”
Catherine described Barbara as being a kind mother, who had taught her children to swim on the beach and brought them on picnics and the like, and that it was impossible for them to imagine that she would just leave her seven children.
“A mother wouldn’t just leave the seven of us … Someone knows something, and they can just call the Gardaí in Clifden or in Galway.”
