91Èȱ¬

The body set up to find the remains of the Disappeared has carried out an exhumation at a cemetery in County Monaghan.

The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) said it received information about suspicious activity during the 1970s at a grave in Annyalla cemetery.

"Both the timeframe and the location coincide with the disappearance of Joe Lynskey in 1972," an ICLVR statement said.

Mr Lynskey was abducted and murdered by the IRA in 1972.

The Disappeared are those who were abducted, murdered and secretly buried during The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Jon Hill, the lead investigator with the ICLVR, said Mr Lynskey's family were "cautiously optimistic".

"But you have to remember they have been down this road before," he told 91Èȱ¬ Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme.

"Sadly this happened back in 2010 when we were undertaking a search for Joe Lynskey and we actually recovered the remains of Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee.

"They are cautious, as are we, and it is the right way to be, but of course they are hopeful."

The exhumation at Annyalla cemetery happened on Tuesday and and continued throughout the day with a forensic anthropologist on behalf of the ICLVR, Mr Hill said.

The ICLVR said the formal process to establish the identity of all of the remains found in the grave has begun.

Mr Hill said that how long the process will take "really depends on what we have recovered and we won't know for some days whilst that is examined by the anthropologist".

"I will be guided by them and the scientists on how long it will take," he said.

"It will take as long as it needs to take."

A former Cistercian monk from the Beechmount area of west Belfast, Mr Lynskey later joined the IRA.

Mr Lynskey went missing in 1972, and republicans have claimed he was "executed and buried" by the IRA.

The latest search for his remains was in 2018. It ended without success.

Last November his niece said that his body "needs to be brought home".

So far, the remains of 13 of the Disappeared have been recovered.

The remaining four are Mr Lynskey, Columba McVeigh, Seamus Maguire and Robert Nairac.

The disappearance of Mr Maguire was taken on as a new case by the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains (ICLVR) in 2022.

The ICLVR was established by the UK and Irish governments in 1999.

Annyalla is between Monaghan town and Castleblayney.