Heartbroken family's 17-year search ended when Barry Coughlan's remains were found
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They travelled to fishing villages and ports all over Ireland, England, and Wales in a desperate bid to find him.
And, after 17 years, his family finally found the answer close to home.
An inquest into the death of Barry Coughlan, who went missing from Crosshaven, Co Cork, in April 2004, heard on Tuesday how, in 2021, his remains were finally recovered from inside his upturned car, which was found on a riverbed just metres from where he had been last seen.
Barry, aged 23 and a fisherman by trade, was last seen alive leaving the former Moonduster pub in the harbour village on the night of April 30, 2004.
His concerned family contacted local gardaí the next day and his father, Jim, checked local car parks and travelled to Kinsale which was hosting the Rugby 7s to search car parks and roads in case his son had been involved in an accident.
Barry’s sister Donna said he had been in good form that week, and that everything seemed normal with him. She said:
When asked by the coroner if there was ever a reason why he would drive a car intentionally into the water, she said: “Never in a million years. He was talking about buying a house and was making plans for his future.”
Retired Garda Sergeant Ger O’Callaghan said the garda missing persons investigation included a large-scale land and water search from May 1 to 7, 2004, involving the Coast Guard, Royal National Lifeboat Association, and naval service divers, who searched the water off Hugh Coveney Pier.
Descriptions of Barry and his 98C Toyota car were distributed nationwide, with a focus on fishing ports. Interpol was alerted and appeals were made in fishing trade magazines.
Mr O’Callaghan said that while it was clear that Barry was not a candidate to go missing or to do harm to himself, the possibility of him driving off the local pier was considered but the lack of CCTV in the area left gardaí with effectively “no leads, nothing to go on”.
In July 2004, gardaí made a public appeal on RTÉ television to coincide with the Cork Week sailing event and in 2006, now retired Garda Conor Fitzpatrick took part in a BBC production on missing people which featured a full reconstruction of Barry’s final movements.
The case was re-examined in 2009 and new witness statements were taken.
The inquest heard how Barry’s family travelled to fishing ports on the east and west coast of Ireland, and to ports in England and Wales in a desperate bid to find him.
The breakthrough finally came in 2021, when members of the Cork City missing persons search and recovery team decided to test a new high-tech side-scanning sonar device on the River Owenabue on the day a trawler protest was being mounted in Cork Harbour, when the river would be quiet.
They discovered Barry’s car on the seabed just off Hugh Coveney Pier and gardaí were alerted, and the car was recovered.
Garda Edward Meaney spent two days searching the mud and silt inside, and recovered human skeletal remains, which DNA tests confirmed were those of Barry Coughlan.
PSV inspector Padraig Coughlan, who examined the car, found that its ignition key was in the on position, its engine was running when it entered the water, the windows were up and the driver seatbelt was unbuckled.
The jury returned a verdict of accidental death by drowning after hearing Barry most likely drove off the pier into the water.