Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
ON 30 APRIL 1991, Conor and Sheila Dwyer attended a funeral at St Patrick’s Church in Fermoy, Co Cork, which was just a short walk from their home.
A neighbour remembers seeing them on the steps of the church afterwards.
That was the last ever sighting of the married couple who were both in their early 60s at the time. Along with their car they vanished, leaving no sign of where they had disappeared to or why.
It was not until 23 days later that the couple was reported missing, when Sheila’s sister Maisie became concerned she had not heard from them.
At the Dwyers’ house on Chapel Hill, where they had raised two sons, gardaí found all of their personal belongings, including their clothes, passports and money.
All that was missing was their white Toyota Cressida.
“They kept to themselves”
It has been 24 years now since Conor and Sheila disappeared and in the quiet town of Fermoy a small number of people still remember them.
Neighbour John Murphy described them as “nice, gentle people”.
“They were quiet, kept to themselves. They went off on their holidays and did their own thing and they were good, church-going people.”
He remembers Sheila Dwyer as “a beautiful woman and lovely person”.
Her family, the Sweeneys, had been well-known in Fermoy and others in the town made similar comments about her.
“She was a reserved lady and she was always perfectly dressed and made up,” local business owner Neil O’Donnell told us at his store on the main street in Fermoy.
Conor Dwyer, O’Donnell said, was “a very outgoing and likeable character”.
And he was a great man for driving the flashy cars. Big monsters of cars parked outside.
Locals who lived in the area at the time all seem to remember these luxury cars outside the house. Dwyer had previously worked as a plumber and as a hackney driver. At the time of his disappearance he was working as a chauffeur for German millionaire businessman Fritz Wolf, who often holidayed at Castlelyons, a small village 6 kilometres away from Fermoy.
For Wolf, he drove a Rolls Royce and a selection of other expensive vehicles.
Tadhg O’Donovan, a Labour councillor who grew up in the area, attended the school directly across from the Dwyers’ home on Chapel Hill.
“Growing up at that particular time, it wasn’t a wealthy area, it was working class so big cars like that wouldn’t go unnoticed by a young lad.”
A normal family life
One of the couple’s sons, also called Conor, told an RTÉ radio documentary in 2008 that his upbringing had been happy and normal.
He described his father as a “hilarious” man who often played jokes on them.
I remember one occasion many, many, many years ago, I was about four years of age and I was at Presentation Convent and my first teacher was a Sister Carmel. And for some reason, I think it was a Friday or Saturday morning at 8.30, and I came downstairs without my trousers…
My father was going out the front door and as he was going out he said: “Oh good morning Sister Carmel!” and I legged it thinking the nun was standing outside the door – with great screeches going back upstairs.
“I can still hear my father splitting a gut laughing at the front door, he just couldn’t stop, he was bent in two. And my mother going: ‘You’re a horrible man, don’t do that to the child’.”
In the RTÉ interview he said he could not think of anyone who would want to hurt his parents or any reason they would have run away and left their life and family behind.
Rumours
Several rumours about Conor and Shelia surfaced over the years.
There had been a suspected sighting of them in Germany but this was never backed up and no further sightings were ever reported.
Some speculated Conor Dwyer was in financial trouble or had become involved in the drug trade in some way, but again, none of this was ever substantiated.
“I often wonder what the hell was going through their minds,” said their son, Conor. “What happened? It’s very, very bizarre, inexplicable. There is no answer. It’s a nightmare, a living nightmare that you have to live with every day.”
At the time he was interviewed, Conor said he believed his parents were alive, and he would never be angry with them if they got back in touch.
Today Conor would be 87 and Sheila would be 85.
Mysteries in Fermoy
The disappearance of this couple was not the only mysterious happening in Fermoy around that time.
Just 14 months before Conor and Shelia went missing another man, 54-year-0ld Billy Fennessy, had also vanished.
“It was very strange. People were dumbfounded by the whole thing,” John Murphy, the Dwyers’ neighbour who had also known Billy Fennessy, recalled.
“It was an extraordinary thing,” Neil O’Donnell told TheJournal.ie.
“It was unusual that one person would go missing in a small town like this, but for it to happen a second time – people were kind of nervous.”
For more than two decades the disappearances hung like dark shadows over the town, until the discovery of Billy Fennessy’s remains in a car on the bed of the River Blackwater in 2013. The car had been found by members of the Blackwater Sub Aqua Search and Rescue team in a routine dive.
Almost a quarter of a century since Conor and Shelia drove off in their white Toyota Cressida never to be seen again, most people in the town do not remember them.
Many people told us they were vaguely familiar with the story, but were not around during the lifetime of the Dwyers.
“I haven’t heard anyone mention them in the last 10 years now,” Neil O’Donnell said.
John Murphy said it is something people “don’t really talk about now”.
“I think people have moved on, life goes on.”
For the remaining members of the couple’s family, life has also moved on, but they carry the mysterious disappearance with them. As their son Conor put it:
“There’s a lot of unanswered questions. That’s what keeps you awake at night.”
The national Missing Persons Helpline can be reached on 1890 442 552 or through this website.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I think that a good place to start is to drop ‘we’ from the discussion. This masks the huge difference in the lives led by people during the time you are talking about. Everybody did not live the same way, did not share the same values, did not respond the same way and did not benefit equally or in the same way.
I think Mr Bonham is completely full of sh1t, but has fallen across a way of selling it to the gullible – “performance psychologist” yeah, right! lol
If people want to understand how ‘we’, as in ‘Western civilisation’ got here in ‘psychological’ terms I recommend Adam Curtis’ 4 part series for the BBC ‘Century of the Self’ (try archive.org) charting the influence of the inventor of the term ‘PR’ (because in his own words, the word ‘propaganda’ had ‘connotations’…) – one Edward Bernays, a nephew of Freud. Modern media & the ‘marketing’ of everything from cigarettes to politicians can be traced back to Bernays & his followers. Curtis tells the story.
To accompany that, read Daniel Kahneman’s book ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’.
Absorb all that & your bullsh1tometer will be fully functional ;)
WE didn’t accept anything the government did, but WE pay for it.
“in search of power and status”.
That made it difficult to read on.
Anyway, we’re all a slave to someone or something.
But WE democratically elected the previous & current governments to act on our behalf.
implicitly we did accept it, there was no massive movement against the government after signing the bank agreement. If we have not accepted it, then why did we vote Fine Gael into government, under the policy of ‘repaying our debts’. Of course we accepted as a collective, if not the resistance would have formed and an alternative form of government sought, though as a collective we are terrified of other forms of government, because it goes against the statues quo, we can’t be having the now can we
Yes, but our democracy is broken.
And “we” did nothing when they pushed the bank guarantee through.
No bankers held responsible yet..it will go like the horse meat in our food scandal..ppffftttt….never happened.move along.
Huge mortgages we’ll never clear Our government and have sold us and our children into bondage
Funnily enough I have no debt but 80K in savings. I must have missed this collective behaviour.
Aren’t ya a great lad Thomas, Maybe you could buy some cop on with your 80K.
It could be argued that if what he says is true he has more cop on than most in many respects.
He’s an awful arse to be bragging about it though. What is it they say? Empty vessels make the most noise?
Please can somebody explain why ‘struggling workers’ will vote Michael Lowry to a majority in the next election.
Sadly gombeenisn is alive and well in some parts of the country, irrespective of whether the economy is in bust or boom!!
Meath east.
I hate gombeenism as much as the next man,but have you ever spoken to anyone from his constituency? They absolutely love him because he ‘fixes’ things. It’s hard to blame people for that.
Tipp North. The capital of gombeenism!!
Can he fix himself, there’s a question.
You can red thumb me all you want but I’m afraid it’s the sad truth of politics in Ireland today. People, especially in sone rural areas feel disconnected from main stream party politicians, they vote for the Jack-the-lad who can pull strokes for them.
Noonan/ bilderberg cronie, sold the bank debt , so as it could become the debt of the Irish taxpayer.
He then introduced new taxes, to punish the Irish people.
Then , the coalition partners, (that pertain to stand up for the working man) allowed Fine Gael to rescind the law , allowing banks to take a family home off a struggling worker.
(Increase taxes to bail out the banks…..
Struggling workers paying more taxes to support newly unemployed & bail out banks.
Struggling worker, can no longer pay mortgage. (Bailed out bank takes house) Bank wins…. On all counts!!!!!
A little simplistic there mate….alot of “struggling workers” were only too happy to take giant mortgages to buy houses and cars to impress the other “struggling workers” trying to do the same.
Don’t forget we are a young nation – learning a very harsh lesson like alot of nations before us.
I know a lot of people that just wanted a home..
They didn’t exceed 250-300k on a mortgage.
They bought in areas that may have been a little let down over the years, but they got a mortgage within their means…
Now with the added taxes, that mortgage is an increasing strain, due to revenue taxes etc.
eventually there will be a default.
Increase on social housing budget, = more taxes. More taxes, more default…..
The current govt, are more concerned about the banks being back to profit, rather than , doing what they were elected for….. “REPRESENT THE IRISH PEOPLE” ..
This is the key point about the current situation. Many people, myself included, we’re well within our means and capable of paying; it was the government’s blanket guarantee for the banks and the resulting tax increases that caused this problem for many homeowners, not spending beyond our means. I think you’ll find it was banks and bondholders that did that.
These articles drive me nuts. The only thing the Celtic Tiger did was the same as any cat. Took everything he could and then before he left to eat at someone else’s table he shit on the doorstep!
I pay a fortune in taxes and the new hidden taxes, my house cost me €167k because I waited and didn’t jump in to a market that was going nuts. What did I get? An equal share in the debts some other shower of bankers (spelled with a W of course) ran up.
Sometimes I wonder is the whole austerity thing a massive construct ! I could be here for hrs goin into that one but you either get me or don’t!
However during the madness of the boom I often heard it said ” sher weren’t we happier when we had nothin in this country” . Well now we got jack so be happy ;)
We truly live in the Matrix.
We have no idea how the money system works – this information is intentionally hidden from us.
We are fed rubbish catch phrases like “Lehmans, pillar banks, banking gambling debts, bailouts” when all these banking collapses are 100% planned to cover up a transient wealth you never received.
And by the way, most of the international news you read is absolute crap – privately owned and filtered to cloak their power and wealth lust adventures and atrocities.
Make sure you sedate yourselves with TV, magazines, games, alcohol, drugs and pay without any resistance or question.
Fear revenue. Fear the courts. Fear the system that must never be challenged…
Yeah, we know all that.
Tell us something we don’t know. Like how to stop it.
Great comment Donnacha, however I fear it will be wasted on some of the commenters here who are asleep yet refuse to believe they are.
To be honest, I surrendered my liberty and became a voluntary slave when I had my first child.
Ireland has the highest personal debt mountain in Europe. But it must have been built up on stolen cards cause nobody in Ireland partied. Nobody…
Did people have problems paying their debts before our banks failed because of their fraudulent activity and we the citizens were forced to pick up the tab , causing job losses and increased taxes and charges etc . NOPE.
Very valid point Julie…
During the Celtic Tiger, I could only spend what I earned!!!!!
But developers were borrowing & spending billions,.!!
Then when the crash came, the developers ran to every other country, claiming poor mouth, while the average guy in Ireland picks up the tab!!!!!
Actually Julie, it was the property bubble bursting wot done it…
Simple equation
Earn……………. E1500 x12
Borrow …………E1000
Monthly Repay E500
Still can live and pay.
2013
Government cut wages, introduce extra taxes bank maintain high interest
New equation
Earn…………..E 1000
Still owe …….E1000 + Property Tax + USC + +++++
Anyone see where the problem started, HINT its not borrowing in the first place.
@ Hedley Lamarr
The problem is obvious Hedley when you put it like that:
Earn……..E15000x12
Erroneously assume everything will stay rosie forever, weill never lose job or receive paycut or face tax increase…Ireland will just keep lowering taxes and having a grand ol’ time…
Borrow…..more than I can afford I my income is reduced.
In other words – fail to consider all possibilities.
I doubt any sensible person truly considers “all possibilities”. They’d never get out of bed in the morning!
Why this desire to make us all collectively guilty? The real culprits are escaping scot free.
“Guilt is the gift that keeps on giving.”
As an Irish collective, we have been indoctrinated into guilt from birth under the control of the Roman church.
But trying to dump the collective guilt on all the people of Eire for the “mistakes” of the banksters is not right.
Or is it a mistake? Is it not a form of auto genocide?
http://www.whale.to/b/crow.html
We already see our sisters and brothers turn on those in receipt of benefits, thus giving the green light to the powers that be to cut further, thus the creation of worse conditions with less money available to spend.
The writer clearly knows Maslow’s pyramid of power and how it works.
A little education Reilly goes along way! Who lent the money to the property developers ? Did they have magic money trees that the rest of us knew nothing about. Who was steering this property bubble media, banks and government. An ordinary person went into the bank for a modest loan that they could afford and the bank as much as bullied them into taking double what they were asking for. When economist warned of what was to come our oh so intelligent Taoiseach told them to commit suicide. Back to my main point, people could pay their debts ,the people were not the problem it was the wreck less actions of our government and the banks they were working for and still are( don’t be fooled as to who is the boss in that relationship ). Now if you can’t see that I suggest you go back and look again at what happened, not just in Ireland but the whole of Europe all starting with American banks.
Right on brother.
..slaves to the wage!
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
Irelands obsession with safety nets and allowing trade unions and welfare leeches to drive our country into debt caused this, the safety net was extended to the banks against the will of the free market, high taxation and invasive policing accross the world eliminated liberty.
@ Thomas Regean. Well done you but try selling your house and you might have noticed some of your friends or relations can’t find jobs or maybe you don’t actually live in Ireland
Trade unions and the welfare state, can’t agree,
Trade unions are middle management( executives), which supports the above article
Welfare has a role in a just society, greed doesn’t acknowledge that not all of us can support ourselves
I have never needed this support but hope if I ever do , that those who can will not begrudge me some assistance
To agree with welfare and oppose bank bailouts is hypocrisy though , they are both safety nets against failure, corporate welfare is as much of a waste of public money as personal welfare, charity , and a low tax , low regulation system to allow job creation is the way to go.
LMAO, we already have a “low tax, low regulation system” and look at where the f*ck we are!!
All it’s managed to create is mass unemployment for the working class, higher taxes for the middle class, and wealth for the top 20%.
And who do you think is going to be buying back all those repossessed homes at bargain prices???
It certainly won’t be the “welfare leeches” you refer to. Let’s just hope you don’t get sick and have to rely on welfare to survive. Karma wouldn’t do that to you, would it? :)
Just a smidgen of veiled threat there Dexter, Watch out for that Karma thingy.
We’ve never had a “low tax, low regulation” system. That’s just what they want you to believe now, while they pick your pocket again.
@ireland uncensored – Congratulations!! You’ve posted the DUMBEST comment of the week.
Nowhere in this article is there a reference to Ireland, to any of the monstrous creations of the banking crisis here such as NAMA or IBRC, or the external institutions, the ECB, the IMF and the Troika, to whom we have surrendered our economic independence in such a grotesquely cheap manner.
This is a generic article full of bland cliches and generalisations that can be reprinted or translated for printing in any country that has been damaged by the banking crisis that continues to consume the developed western economic sector.
The message it contains is an insidious bastardisation of the truth.
The citizens of these countries are being told that the crisis has been caused because, in some subconscious way, people prefer slavery to freedom.
It makes little if any reference to the identities of the masters to whom these wilful slaves owe their allegiance.
There is a bit of a clue in the names of some of the authors clients, multinational corporations and banks.
The central banks of the developed western economies allowed the system of banking and credit control to become corrupted in the 1990′s, the result being the invention of previously non-existent credit which was flooded into the economic infrastructure.
The banks are broke, they had no money to lend to start with and have balance sheets full of worthless assets.
This article is pure propaganda, an effort to disguise the truth and persuade people the fault of the crisis lies with them rather than the banks.
Right on! Enda Kenny with his” The whole of Ireland went mad borrowing” remarks .
Forgot to mention that all these slave built high tech societies in the end succumbed to slave revolts and barbarians.
Eventually the same revolt will happen here too.
As Connie Francis sang in the 60s Everybodys somebodys fool.
Bob Dylan – You Gotta Serve Somebody
ill tell you how we got here… because we live an a vacuous society where ‘performance psychologist’ is considered an authority on economic affairs…
W
Wage slavers.
In Ancient Rome if you spent more than 50% of your time working you were considered a slave.
It’s hard to think of a profession that requires less than 50% of a persons time.
Since when did the importance of money surpass the importance of enjoying your life. You can have one without the other, the best thing in life are free.
Your 1st comment was better than the 2nd
A person working an 8 hour day will at most work probably 20% of their time.
Are you including time spent sleeping there Thomas? Because I wouldn’t call time spent to maintain cognitive function “free time”.
But I suppose in today’s world it’s considered a luxury.
It is free time. But then you never mentioned free time, just time.
@thomas: there’s 168 hours a week, so assuming a seven-day workweek, doing 8 hours a day would mean you spend 33.33% of your time working, but if you reduce that to five days, or 40 hours in total, it still equates to 23.8.
Are you totally sure you didn’t get involved in group behaviour, and the 80k in savings you’re so proud of isn’t more like 2 million in debt, given your mathematical acumen?
So no bank holidays or holidays for you then. Thanks would make me completely correct, right?
Apologies Thomas, I’ll add in irrelevant detail to cover my ass next time.
Not everybody entered into slavery. Many people were prepared to live in mobile homes and sub standard housing in order to avoid the death grip( mortgage). That didn’t stop the government from forcing them to pay bankers debt also. While they live in the lap of luxury.
I agree, many people are now downsizing and there’s the slow food movement and various other efforts to to show people there’s another way. We need a paradigm shift for everyone though. The majority WERE coaxed into loans and mortgages. People ate brainwashed by their own culture. You can’t blame them, as patronising as that sounds. Knowledge is power. What’s needed is a new approach to living and outlook on life. That takes a monumental shift and is unlikely to happen to those who don’t educate themselves via the internet or be educated by family/friends.
Hahaha educate themselves via the Internet. Good one.
We put all our chips in the game to save the euro. This was the gambit known as the bank guarantee when we as an outpost of the euro faced attack by global speculators. The euro is the right decision even at this price given our disasterous history alone or in the British empire. If this government had not abandoned its mandate to seek a write down the price could be a lot better….
The Euro is just another form of bondage.
have your say