On a cold October evening in 1971, a 19-year-old civil servant climbed off a bus on the Fairyhouse Road in County Meath and began to make her way home.
It was only a short walk but Una Lynskey never made it.
Screams were heard from a nearby field and a Ford car was spotted.
To this day, no one knows exactly what happened to her but we do know that her disappearance was not the only terrible injustice locals would have to grapple with.
One person who will never forget the horror of that time is Martin Conmey.
Then aged only 20, he had two close friends at the time; Dick Donnelly and Marty Kerrigan.
The trio liked to drive around in Dick’s Ford Zephyr and, true to form, that was what they were doing on the night of Una’s disappearance.
The three gave statements to Gardaí, telling them they had not seen Una that night and they had nothing to do with what happened to her.
They might have been believed, had it not been for a local Garda, John McKeown.
He claimed he had seen Dick’s Ford Zephyr at a local shop at precisely 6.48PM on the evening of Una’s disappearance.
McKeown said he was completely sure because had been there, waiting for a call from England.
He also said the car had left at 6.53PM - meaning Dick would have been in the vicinity of Úna at the time of her disappearance.
At this point, the case was of national significance and the Garda Technical Bureau, or the ‘Murder Squad’ as it was usually called, was called in.
Upon their arrival from Dublin, they began to comb through the witness statements.
Interrogation
Martin was taken to Trim Garda Station where he underwent a terrifying ordeal.
“I remember being brought in and [Detective Sergeant John] Courtney, [Garda Brian] Guildea with his checked jacket - I remember that and a real sour face on him,” he said.
“I was called a murderer, ‘Where is she? The game is up.’
“I said, ‘What are you talking about?’
“They said, ‘Where is she? We know you took her, we know you came up down the road.’
“I said, ‘I didn’t see Una, I know nothing about her.’”
Martin’s denials fell on deaf ears and the two Gardaí became increasingly angry with him.
“It got to the stage where I was actually afraid to tell the truth, it was that bad,” Martin said.
“It was going on for hours.”
Violence
For over four hours, Martin stuck to his guns and repeated his version of events, over and over again.
Guildea became, in Martin’s words, “pure mad” and punched the young man in front of him.
“Before that, he was banging the table and kicking chairs around the place,” Martin said.
“I was just waiting for a box, the worst thing about that was not only the physical torture, it was the mental torture.”
Naive and desperate to go home, Martin decided to tell the Guards what they wanted to hear - and made a false confession.
He claimed they had given Una a lift that night and then his mind went blank.
Una’s parents and the parish priest were brought in; the Gardaí demanded Martin repeat what he had told them.
“I started making up another story, a different story,” Martin said.
“It was like a horror movie that place.”
Martin feared for his life and signed his confession at 7.30PM Tuesday October 26th 1971.
He hoped it would all be over but his nightmare was only just beginning.
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Main image: Trim Garda Station on May 15th, 2021. Picture by: Alamy.com
