Sniffer dogs join bog hunt for missing Ciara

Cadaver dogs have been combing the Balmer’s Bog area of Dundalk, Co Louth, in a bid to find Ciara’s remains

Specialist sniffer dogs have been brought in to help the search for missing teenager Ciara Breen.

The highly-trained cadaver dogs have been combing the Balmer’s Bog area of Dundalk, Co Louth, in a bid to find Ciara’s remains.

Gardai have been searching for the teenager, who disappeared 18 years ago, after receiving “significant information” following a public appeal earlier this year.

The team battled through horrendous conditions yesterday as they tried to find anything which could solve the mystery of her disappearance.

Sources said they are quietly confident gardai will make “real progress” in cracking the case which has been open since 1997.

They believe the detailed information they received from an anonymous letter sent to Dundalk Garda station holds the key to cracking the cold case.

One theory is Ciara died a violent death and her body was dumped in the marshland.

Retired detective Alan Bailey said he believed Ciara slipped out that night to meet an older man.

A man in his 50s was arrested in April in relation to her disappearance but was later released without charge and a file sent to the DPP. He was known to Ciara but not related to her.

The former officer told Newstalk Breakfast: “It wasn’t random. She left her house that night to meet a man double her age.

“This man was hanging around the group Ciara was part of. The youngsters would gather at a chip shop every evening.

“It wasn’t the first time she slipped out the window to meet him.”

The news comes as it emerged the family of Fiona Sinnott, who disappeared from her home in Wexford in 1998, carried out a private dig.

Fiona Sinnott Missing

hey believe she was killed as she returned home from her local pub, Butler’s in Broadway,

Her uncle Eugene said: “People are coming to us all the time with bits of information, we are going on every lead now, not just one lead, we’ve got three prime places that we have to look into.”

Irish Mirror