Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings/Conspiracy Theories Book II

Ireland's Vanishing Triangle

Ireland's "VanishingTriangle" is a term commonly used in the Irish mediawhen referring to a number of high-profile disappearances of Irishwomen in the mid to late 1990s.

Background

The "Vanishing Triangle"disappearances cases all appeared to share some commoncharacteristics. For example: the women were all young (ranging fromtheir late teens to forty years of age), they disappearedinexplicably and suddenly, and no substantial clues or evidence oftheir fate has ever been found despite large scale searches andcampaigns by the Irish police force (or Gardaí) to find them.Another important characteristic is that all disappearances occurredin an area which became known in the media as "The VanishingTriangle". The triangle is in the eastern part of theisland, roughly the boundaries of Leinster. To date the unofficiallist of Ireland's missing women numbers six. Due to similarities inthe cases, a popular hypothesis is that they may be the result of aserial killer or killers being active in the area during this period.The cases of these missing women feature in the Irish mediaperiodically and the disappearances have been the subject in a numberof unsolved crime documentaries, the TV-3 (Irl) production"Disappeared in the Mountains" being one example. Irish police set up Operation Trace to focus on unsolveddisappearance but to date this has failed to turn up any substantialclues as to the fate of the women despite a €10,000 reward offeredfor information resulting in the recovery of a body.

The missing women

The following women are usuallyincluded in the unofficial listing:

Annie McCarrick, 26, of LongIsland, New York, went missing on March 26, 1993. She was living inSandymount, Co. Dublin. The last confirmed sighting of her was at apost office in Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow. However, there was anunconfirmed sighting of her outside Johnnie Fox's Pub in Glencullen,County Dublin. This sighting was by a doorman of the pub who said shewas with an unknown man. They left the lounge of Johnny Fox's Pub andentered the cabaret room where the unknown man paid for both of themto enter. McCarrick had invited her friend, Hilary Brady and hisgirlfriend, Rita Fortune to dinner at her apartment the next day.When McCarrick was not there, they contacted her parents in New Yorkand she was reported missing. McCarrick's parents, John and NancyMcCarrick arrived in Ireland shortly after their daughter wasreported missing but left after a six-month long unsuccessful searchfor McCarrick.

Eva Brennan, 39, of Rathgar, Co.Dublin, went missing on July 25, 1993. She was depressed prior to herdisappearance. She disappeared after leaving a family lunch at herparents' house in Rathgar. Brennan's father went to her apartmentbecause she had not come to the family home for two days. He rang thedoor bell. He then went over to the Horse and Hound Pub which theBrennan family owned and asked a barman to come over and they broke awindow to get in. The jacket she had worn on the day she was lastseen was there, so Brennan must have gone back to her apartment thatday. There was no initial Garda investigation known to the family foraround three months. The Brennan family have criticized the Gardai onhow they dealt with Brennan's disappearance. A rumor that circulatedand was repeated by some Gardai suggested that Eva may have knowndouble-killer Michael Bambrick, who was convicted of killing andburying Patricia McGauley and Mary Cummins in Clondalkin, Dublin.Brennan's sister, Colette McCann said it was extremely unlikely shewould have known Bambrick and had not, to anyone's knowledge, been toClondalkin or the south inner city where Bambrick originally camefrom. She said her sister visited her parents' home everyday, hadlunch there and returned to her apartment and rarely went out. Theexperience of the Brennan family is not dissimilar to that of thefamily of Marilyn Rynn, who disappeared shortly before Christmas in1995 and was later revealed to have been murdered between December22, 1995 and January 7, 1996 by David Lawler.