Ms Helen McKendry was out shopping yesterday evening when she heard news that she hopes and prays will allow her to bury her mother, Jean McConville, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
"She nearly got knocked down by a car rushing across the street to tell me," said her husband Seamus, who with Helen has campaigned tirelessly for the return of Mrs McConville's body and others of the "disappeared" killed by the IRA.
Mrs McConville left 10 children behind her when she was abducted and murdered by the IRA in December 1972. For a month Helen looked after her siblings "hiding them under tables and behind doors" so that social services wouldn't split up the family, said Mr McKendry.
She also lived in fear that the men and women who took her mother would come back for her and her brothers and sisters. At 15 she played mother through the Christmas period but the authorities finally learned of the family's situation, and the family was broken up.
Helen was in "turmoil" yesterday hoping that the remains found on Shelling Hill Beach were that of her mother. As members of the family travelled to Co Louth the large extended McConville family was similarly hoping that a cross long carried could be removed.
Mr McKendry, reflecting the McConvilles' anxiety, said he believed the body was "probably" that of Jean McConville. But he then worried that it might not be and that Helen and the family could be disappointed and dejected again.
He recalled how for 50 days in 1999 gardaí dug at Templetown Beach in Co Louth searching fruitlessly for the body, even though the IRA insisted she had been buried there. He believed that the IRA was mistaken in fixing on Templetown Beach as the location.
The remains found yesterday were located at Shelling Hill Beach, which is about a quarter of a mile from Templetown.
"At the time I suspected it might have been Shelling Hill Beach as the approach to the two beaches is virtually the same.
"The Provos typically though were adamant that they couldn't have made a mistake," said Mr McKendry with considerable anger. DNA and other tests should soon be able to confirm whether the remains are those of Mrs McConville. The location of the find is leading the family to believe that this time they can properly lay their mother to rest.
"Let's hope that we can now bury Jean with decorum," said Mr McKendry. There are a number of claims over why Mrs McConville, then aged 37, was taken away and murdered by the IRA in December 1972. A Protestant, she had married a Catholic, Arthur McConville, who predeceased her 11 months earlier.
One theory was that she was abducted, questioned and killed because she went to the aid of a British soldier who was lying wounded outside her door. It was also claimed that Mrs McConville was shot because she was an informer, a claim vehemently denied by the family. According to the McKendrys, the IRA cynically claimed at the time she had run away with a British soldier or a loyalist.
The McKendrys established Families of the Disappeared and it was largely through their campaigning that the IRA in 1999 conceded that it had killed and buried nine people between 1972 and 1981.
It provided information on the whereabouts of the bodies to the Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains, but in the majority of cases the information was too imprecise. The IRA blamed this on changes of IRA personnel over the years, the deaths of some who had knowledge about the secret graves, and changes of leadership.
Three bodies were found however: those of Eamon Molloy, who disappeared from north Belfast in 1975, and friends John McClory and Brian McKinney from west Belfast who were abducted and killed in May 1978.
Last night Mrs Margaret McKinney, who like the McKendrys had campaigned on behalf of the "disappeared" went to Mass in Leeds to pray that the remains discovered yesterday were those of Jean McConville.
On holidays in Harrogate with her daughter Linda she said she went to pray that the McConvilles could have the same peace of mind that she had received from being able to bury her son. "I can't even describe that peace, to have a grave to go to, to be able to lay flowers on it," she said.
