The Vanishing Triangle

by Claire McGowan

I’m always surprised that, when I talk about this project, people’s first question is, ‘Were they sex workers?’ (though usually they don’t use this term). Think about what it means, that question – that we expect a certain type of woman to go missing, to be murdered. Not women like us.

The focus of the investigation would often begin with the idea she’d gone off with a man, and not consider that perhaps she’d been taken against her will, as police might in America or England. You would think, ‘Who’s she gone away with?’, is what Alan said. Judgement would start, and who knows what difference that makes to an investigation in those crucial early days? This attitude was confirmed by another retired Garda I spoke to, Pat Marry. Pat worked on many high-profile Irish murder cases, including that of Marilyn Rynn, and is now a private detective and author. He also worked on another of the triangle cases – the youngest missing woman, who was just seventeen when she disappeared, Ciara Breen.

About the kind of people who get looked for when they’re missing, or whose murders get priority, and those who don’t. About the complacency and judgement directed towards missing women, often by those who should be searching for them. I’m a liberal, but these cases also say a lot about how violent men are able to hurt and even kill women, and then get out of prison, sometimes within just a few years or months, and do it all over again. The reoffending rate for sexual crimes is something like 50 per cent.