Search continues at former home of missing child

Gardaí (Irish police) investigating the suspected murder of an eight-year-old boy have resumed a forensic search at his former family home in County Louth.

Kyran Durnin was reported missing in Drogheda at the end of August, but last week gardaí said he is now “presumed dead” and they began a murder investigation.

The terraced property being searched in Dundalk – about 20 miles north of Drogheda – was his family’s home for several years until May 2024.

The search at the rented property in Emer Terrace, in Dundalk, began on Tuesday.

Technical and forensic examinations are being carried out in the house, the garden and adjoining open ground at the rear of the terrace.

Gardaí stressed on Tuesday that the “current tenants of this house are not connected in anyway with Kyran or his disappearance”.

Although the missing person inquiry began less than two months ago, Irish broadcaster RTÉ previously reported that detectives believe Kyran may have been killed more than two years ago.

“How could a child go missing from their family and their community for two years and nobody report it to any authorities?” asked Tanya Ward, chief executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance in the Republic of Ireland.

“It’s shocking and disturbing and confounding really for those of us that work with children and young people because Ireland has really clear children-first laws and child protection is everyone’s business.”

Ms Ward told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme that it was “the kind of case that’s keeping everyone awake to be honest, that this could happen in Ireland in 2024”.

The Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Simon Harris has also expressed his concern over the case, describing it as “utterly horrifying”.

The family’s previous contact with Irish child protection services is now the subject of an independent national review.

Tusla, the state agency responsible for child welfare and protection, has also said it it carrying out an internal review of its interactions with Kyran’s family.

Conor Lally, security and crime editor of The Irish Times, said: “It really is a heart-breaking case. It’s also a very unusual case.”

He described it as “worrying” that Kyran’s last known school attendance was more than two and a half years ago.

“It does appear from speaking to garda sources that, at that stage, the family had floated the idea locally that they were going to relocate to Northern Ireland,” Mr Lally told Good Morning Ulster.

He said the fact that Kyran did not return to school for the start of the following academic year “wouldn’t have really raised any concern because people believed that the family were relocating out of that area”.

BBC News NI has asked Tusla if its staff had been led to believe that the family had moved to Northern Ireland, but the agency declined to answer that question.

Neither the gardaí nor the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) will confirm if any investigations have been carried out in Northern Ireland in relation to Kyran’s disappearance.

The PSNI referred all queries to the gardaí as it is the force leading the investigation, but a garda spokeswoman said she could not “comment on the specifics of any investigative actions”.

Last weekend, following the announcement that Kyran’s disappearance was being treated as murder, candlelit vigils were organised in Dundalk and Drogheda.

The first took place in Market Square in Dundalk on Saturday evening and then a separate vigil was held outside St Peter’s Cathedral in Drogheda on Sunday.

Brittany McEnteggart, who organised the Dundalk event, told BBC News NI she has been following the case closely since Kyran was first reported missing last month.

She said she felt was “angry” that a child could disappear for so long without any alarms being raised.

“How could a child just be taken out of school without anyone following it up?” she asked.

Ms McEnteggart has lived in Dundalk for the past 14 years but grew up in the foster care system in the USA and said Kyran’s case “touched a chord” with her. .

She said she felt Kyran’s disappearance was not taken seriously enough soon enough and vigils were an important way of keeping the case in the public eye.

She estimated that at least 50 people attended last Saturday’s event but she hopes for a larger crowd at her next vigil planned for the same venue next Monday.

• 2021 – 2022 – Kyran was a pupil at a national [primary] school near his home in Dundalk, but he did not return to the school after the 2022 summer holidays.
• May 2024 – Kyran’s family moved out of their home in Emer Terrace in Dundalk, where they had been living for a number of years.
• Unknown date in August 2024 – Tulsa, the Irish state agency responsible for child protection, alerted gardaí about “a significant concern about Kyran”.
• 28 August 2024 – The approximate date of the last sighting of the boy and his mother in Drogheda, according to a missing person report made to gardaí.
• 30 August 2024 – Kyran and his 24-year-old mother Dayla Durnin were reported missing from their home in Drogheda.
• 4 September 2024 – Gardaí issued a public missing persons appeal, seeking help to find Dayla and Kyran.
• 16 October 2024 – Gardaí said they now believed that “Kyran is missing, presumed dead” and they confirmed they have begun a murder inquiry.
• 21 October 2024 – Acting under a search warrant, gardaí take possession of the Durnins’ former family home in Emer Terrace, Dundalk.
• 22 October 2024 – a forensic examination of the house, garden and nearby open ground began. Officers also said they had identified Kyran’s mother’s whereabouts.