Fresh hope for family of one of Ireland's oldest missing persons

He never contacted the family again and his only surviving sibling, Frank, who was only aged 4 at the time of his brother’s disappearance, never gave up hope of finding out what happened to him.

Mr O’Neill told the Irish Examiner this week that he received an airline record to Canada for a James O’Neill, as well as a ship record with the same name, that had similar ages to his brother.

He also has been notified about a James O’Neill who died in a nursing home in Canada, who had no known relatives and was around the same age as James, also known as Jimmy.

“I’ve had a million false hopes, and this could be another one” he said. 

“But you have to try because no matter what anyone says — and people do say ‘you should move on’ — you simply can’t.

“People with missing relatives such as my own brother, you can’t forget. How can you? 

It is a sorrowful burden to carry. I saw how Jimmy’s disappearance impacted my parents. My mother died crying out his name.

It is not unusual for people who want to go missing to change their names and dates of births. 

The records given to Mr O’Neill show a Malachy O’Neill went from Liverpool to Montreal, Canada, in 1960 and 1956.

The records for a flight from Shannon in 1958 show a James M O’Neill, also born in 1931, flew from Ireland to New York.

Mr O’Neill has been informed about a grave for a James O’Neill who died in 2012 in Canada, who had no known relatives and was buried by the community.

"I have contacted the place in Canada, and they are looking into it for me, I’ve also given the records to the gardaí who have always helped me.

"The thing about a case like Jimmy’s is that you follow up any new information so you can rule it out or in."

James 'Jimmy' O’Neill was the eldest son in the family and despite Garda investigations, public appeals, and DNA tests, nothing ever showed up for him.

One ship manifest showed a man of a similar age travelled from Liverpool to the US, but the O’Neills also were open to the theory that their brother settled in Liverpool.

Anyone who has a missing relative knows, there is no end to the suffering the missing person’s story causes the entire family.

“My sister Nancy was the last one to die in the family and she moved to America and looked for him there. 

"She always said, ‘maybe we’ll get a breakthrough’ and you just must go on living that way, hoping there will be a breakthrough.

“I go to mass every day and pray for him and ask God to help”.

In 2023, Mr O’Neill brought the Irish Examiner to his family’s grave in Waterford where he had Jimmy’s name engraved on the O’Neill headstone which said: ‘Gone but Never Forgotten’, at St Mary’s Cemetery in Ballygunner.

“It will be there forever, even after my time is up, and someone might come along some day and see that we never forgot Jimmy.”