Priest in emotional appeal for help in locating missing Limerick man

A PRIEST has begged for anyone with information about his cousin, who has been missing for 17 years, to come forward to bring an end to the family's suffering.

Fr Aquinas Duffy, who serves in Cabinteely in Dublin, has pleaded for anyone to help the family of his first cousin, Aengus 'Gussie' Shanahan, who has not been seen since February 11, 2000.

Gardai issued a fresh appeal for information over the weekend on the anniversary of his disappearance.

Fr Duffy, the founder of Ireland's first missing persons website, missing.ie, which counts over 100 missing Irish people currently, said that the photos of the missing on the site are of “faces frozen in time.”

“Gussie is still 20 years of age in that picture, and there is something very unreal about the whole thing. You have all these people frozen in time, because in a sense time stops for the families,” he told the Limerick Leader.

“I am absolutely convinced there are people, particularly in Limerick, who have information in relation to Gussie's disappearance. I cannot understand why people continue to remain silent, because for every second of silence it prolongs the nightmare.

“I would again appeal to people, not just who have direct information, but their friends as well who may know something about what happened. I would ask them at this very late stage to come forward. I just beg them please to come forward,” he said.

Gussie's mother Nancy, added Fr Duffy, died “heartbroken” in May of last year, without ever knowing what happened to her youngest child.

- For more, see the weekend editions of the Limerick Leader