As many children get ready to enjoy the Halloween mid-term break, an eight-year-old boy, missing for up to two years and now presumed dead, remains unaccounted for.
The harrowing facts in the case of Kyran Durnin have stopped people in their tracks this week. Two birthdays. Two Christmases. Two years. How did nobody notice that he was missing?
It is now just 10 days since gardaí upgraded their investigation into his disappearance from a missing person's case to one of murder.
As the story this week garnered growing national and international attention, the focus remains a young boy, who should be enjoying some of life’s happiest years.
Kyran was reported missing from his home in Drogheda on 30 August 2024. Who exactly filed this missing person’s report at Drogheda Garda Station still remains unknown.
Gardaí were told that he was last seen in the town two days previous, but following extensive inquiries, detectives uncovered information that led them to believe that Kyran was missing a lot longer than 48 hours.
Kyran was thought to no longer just be missing, he was now deemed by gardaí to be missing presumed dead and sources said he may have been missing for up to two years.
A murder investigation was launched and an incident room set up at Drogheda Garda Station.
A statement from Tusla soon followed to say the Child and Family Agency was working closely with gardaí and while it could not comment on the specifics, it was aware of what it described as a "sensitive case".
Fast-forward to Monday of this week, the first of many unusual developments - if this case wasn't mysterious enough already - took place.
When asked about Kyran, Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman said he had requested that Tusla send its files on the missing schoolboy to a specialist panel, which looks into the death of any child with links to State care.
The National Review Panel is responsible for reviewing the investigation of serious incidents, including the deaths of children in care and known to the child protection system.
However, such a move is not the norm as files would generally only be sent to this panel after a garda or other investigation has concluded, but as we know, the investigation into the disappearance of Kyran remains very much ongoing.
The following morning, gardaí held a media briefing outside Dundalk Garda Station.
Chief Superintendent of the Cavan/ Monaghan/ Louth Garda Divisions, Alan McGovern appeared from the station and stood either side of two pictures of Kyran in his Spiderman hoodie.
He told journalists working for news outlets not just based in the republic but also in Belfast and London that a search operation had been launched at the former Durnin family home at Emer Terrace in Dundalk.
The house, which is about a 10-minute drive from Dundalk town centre, is known to have been Kyran’s family home for a period of years up to last May.
Gardaí took possession of the house on Monday after securing a District Court Order and said the purpose of the search was to discover any evidence which might provide them with information as to Kyran’s current whereabouts or what happened to him.
They stressed that the current tenants living at the property, located on the busy Castletown Road, were in no way connected to their investigation.
However, two other pieces of important information were also confirmed that morning.
Gardaí stated that Kyran had been a student at a local primary school in Dundalk up to around the end of the 2021/2022 school year.
They also said they had identified the whereabouts of Kyran’s mother, who was previously reported missing along with her son.
Then, that evening, came a second statement from Tusla - another unusual development in a case that is currently the subject of a live garda investigation.
The Child and Family Agency said while Kyran had not been in its care, it had engaged with him and his family.
However, and somewhat more strikingly, the statement said that in August of this year, Tusla had alerted gardaí to a significant concern about Kyran. The exact nature of this "significant concern" was not disclosed.
Tusla also confirmed that it had opened an internal review into the interactions it had with Kyran and his family, and that "a notification" had been sent to the National Review Panel.
The Children's Rights Alliance released a statement of its own soon after.
Its CEO Tanya Ward asked how, in 2024, a child can go missing from his family and community for two years.
In the statement, Ms Ward also said: "Child protection is everyone’s business under our Children First legislation. This is why it is deeply troubling that a child could disappear for so long."
Bigger systemic and societal issues regarding the country’s child protection services were beginning to emerge.
By Wednesday, as the search at the former Durnin family home in Dundalk entered a second day, the case of missing eight-year-old Kyran was the talk of the town.
Locals walking through Emer Terrace on an unusually sunny and warm October morning questioned how a boy so young could be missing for so long.
Those shopping or stopping in for a bite to eat in the town centre asked each other if they had heard about the case and tried to process the shock that Kyran’s disappearance had caused - the same sense of shock that was starting to grip the nation.
Following an extensive search inside the former Durnin family home and the excavation of the back garden behind it, attention turned to an area of nearby wasteland.
During the course of that Wednesday morning, a mini digger was taken away from the search site and a bigger one delivered.
Local residents allowed forensic experts and members of the Garda Technical Bureau to move this digger through their property in order to access the relatively small area of wasteland behind the back gardens of the terraced houses.
This was to be the focus of the rest of the search, as gardaí made clear that these residents were not in any way connected to Kyran or his disappearance.
Of course, the narrow access route to this area of open land also meant that the installation of a floodlight system was not possible.
As daylight faded on Wednesday evening, the search was stood down just after 6pm, but it would resume again at first light the following morning.
As the search operation entered its final day, it became apparent that there were now two strands to this case; the ongoing garda investigation, but also the wider questions it raised about child protection services in this country.
On Thursday morning, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris - a man with 34 years of policing experience in Northern Ireland, some of which were during The Troubles - said in all his years as a police officer, he has "never seen a set of circumstances" like those in this case.
Commissioner Harris also added a rather chilling remark that there is a particular element to the case that is "difficult to comprehend".
The second strand to the Kyran Durnin case was brought into sharp focus that lunchtime.
The Special Rapporteur on Child Protection in Ireland, Caoilfhionn Gallagher told RTÉ’s News at One programme that it is "deeply concerning" that it took two years for the case of missing Kyran to be picked up.
Ms Gallagher went on to starkly say that the case is occurring against a backdrop of growing concerns in relation to child protection issues in Ireland and whether adequate steps are being taken to gather information about children at risk.
As the afternoon drew on, word began to filter out that there was to be a development at the search site at Emer Terrace.
Members of the Garda Technical Bureau began to leave the area of wasteland.
Shortly afterwards, once the digger and some other shrubbery cutting equipment including strimmers were taken away, the members of the local divisional search unit followed suit.
It was clear that the search was over, but what did gardaí find?
Confirmation from Garda Headquarters followed in due course that the search of the former Durnin family home and the adjoining open lands at Emer Terrace in Dundalk had indeed been completed.
However, gardaí said the results of the operation were not being released for "operational purposes".
At that is where we are at this bank holiday weekend, left with more questions than answers.
Gardaí, the authorities officially tasked with getting to the bottom of this case and the only ones entrusted with the legal powers to do so, say they will not be commenting on local speculation.
They also do not anticipate there to be any updates in the case in the short-term.
Yesterday marked the start of the Halloween mid-term break.
Many eight-year-olds got to go to school dressed as their favourite movie character or superhero. Many eight-year-olds will get to go trick-or-treating on Thursday. Many eight-year-olds will get to spend a week enjoying time with their families.
However, for now at least, where eight-year-old Kyran Durnin is or what happened to him still remains a mystery.
