Thirty five years on, one of the original investigating gardai involved in the disappearance of six year old Mary Boyle near Ballyshannon is convinced there are people who know what happened.
“There are people out there who know what happened to Mary Boyle. And I would ask them at this late stage, after 35 years, to come forward with that bit of information. And I believe that the day Mary disappeared, she never left Cashelard alive,” retired Garda Sergeant Martin Colins told the local newspaper, the Donegal Democrat.
The mother of Mary Boyle who disappeared on a country lane at Cashelard, Ballyshannon on March 18th, 1978, says she is certain “someone knows exactly where it happened”.
Ann Boyle said: “I am sure somebody knows exactly where it happened to Mary that day. I am hoping that even at this late stage they will come forward. If anyone would have said to me on the 18th of March 1977 that I wouldn’t have a clue what happened to my little girl 35 years later, I would not believe them.”
In a new development, a senior ranking Monaghan-based Detective Superintendent is leading a team of investigators, who are completing a ‘cold-case’ type review of the circumstances of her sudden vanishing.
Singer Margo O’Donnel also believes that Mary remains will be found this year.
She added: “Somebody knows where they put Mary.”In making the appeal to a person or persons who hold the key to the mystery she said that they could phone and ”withhold their number”, send her an anonymous note, leave a note under a stone, or even “tie it to a cow’s ear and tell me what cow it is on.
“ All I want to do, with her twin sister (Ann) and she is equally, as deeply involved in this as I am, if not more – all we want to do is bring Mary home.”

