This article is from page 3 of the 2008-01-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 3 JPG
THE tragic Whitegate man whose body was found in the Shannon after a 32-day search was laid to rest on Sunday.
Teams of experts and volunteers had combed the area around Lough Derg, Killaloe and Ballina when James Burke from Ballinruan disap- peared after a night out with friends.
He was last seen near the bridge in Killaloe on Sunday, December 9, just after 10pm. He was heading for The Anchor Bar after an evening’s socialising in the town with friends, but never showed up in the bar.
Last Friday, a local man walking his dog spotted the body in the water north of the bridge in Killaloe a little after 9.30am.
A garda spokesman said the dis- covery was made at the rear of the li- brary, on the Scariff side of the town. The spot is not far from where James was last seen.
Gardai called in the local coast guard unit to help recover the re- mains which were taken from the lake to the Mid-West Regional Hos- pital in Limerick where a post-mor- tem and official identification were carried out.
Silom DENese Maye ame:Bicre Ma J eles pMmE-De eto didn’t show up for work or contact his parents.
Before Christmas, his mother, Peggy, made an appeal for help with finding her son.
“James was a very keen angler and he would have known not to go near the water when it was so high. He was a very happy lad with not a worry in the world. He phoned me earlier that night to say he would be home shortly.”
A widescale search of land and wa- ter was launched, including dives of the main River Shannon when the Ardnacrusha Power Station turbines were turned off.
The building site where the 23- year-old worked closed down and his workmates from Muggivan’s build- ers joined in the search.
A spokesman for the gardai said that they do not suspect any foul play. It’s thought James may have slipped and fallen into the water.
At one stage, neighbours called on the help of a psychic to try to locate AF Weatene
It’s not clear whether the body was obscured and missed in the initial searches or whether extremely high, fast-moving water in the area made it difficult to see.