THEY vowed to never give up the search for their missing son and tonight the agony for Kieran McAree’s parents is over after his body was discovered in Lough Erne.
Martin and Geraldine McAree made the distressing journey to Enniskillen from Monaghan for 64 days, hoping that every new day would bring them closer to finding Kieran’s body.
This afternoon a body found near the Round ‘O’ was retrieved by police and after being formally identified was confirmed to be Kieran, who would have turned 24 on Monday.
The news has come as a relief to Martin and Geraldine and speaking to impartialreporter.com at the Round ‘O’ tonight the couple said they can start planning their son’s funeral.
“We are very relieved; we’ve got Kieran now and that’s the start of another process,” said Geraldine.
“Day 64 to us is another day and we had nowhere else to go,” said Martin. “We came here in hope every day as we’ve said to you many times. We are relieved. At least this chapter is over and we’ll cross the other one when we come to it. At the minute we are just relieved that this is over.” The communities in Enniskillen and Emyvale where the family are from supported the search operation from day one. The assistance from local people is what has kept the McArees going.
“People and prayers were keeping me going… the community here and in my own community in Monaghan and Emyvale kept me going. People would come down to talk to us, drop in food, they kept us going,” she said.
“I don’t know how to thank them all,” added Martin, “People of Enniskillen have been great. Different people said at the start of this ‘why Enniskillen’? I am looking back now and saying ‘why not Enniskillen’? It has been a lovely place. Everybody; shop owners, everybody from around the town, the PSNI… couldn’t say enough about the PSNI. I want to thank everyone very much.” In terms of what is next for the family, Geraldine said: “It’s very hard to say where we go from here. I suppose now we have got Kieran and we’ll take him home and he’ll be buried. After that the family will have to keep together and keep going. The two families will keep us going and friends and we’ll try to move on a wee bit. It’ll be very hard to move on without Kieran,” she said.
Martin and Geraldine McAree were determined to keep looking for Kieran for as long as it took and they and the dozens of volunteers in Enniskillen and Emyvale didn’t let him down.
Listen to Impartial Reporter journalist Rodney Edwards' interview with Martin and Geraldine McAree here:
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